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ELEMENTS 



ASTRONOMY, 



—CONTAINING— 



SEVERAL NEW THEORIES, 



—AND IS— 



ILLUSTRATED. 



By MILTON W. RAMSEY. 







MINNEAPOLIS I 

TEAVIS BROTHERS. 

1883. 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1883, by Milton W. Ramsey, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



PREFACE. 



This work is the result of much study. It contains 
all the new theories of the author, which cost much 
time and money, to prove their correctness — machinery 
was made for that purpose only. 

I hope the reader will study the subject and try to con- 
ceire or understand the meaning of the author on every 
theory. I have tried to avoid long and tedious theories ; 
to leave out all unnecessary verbosity ; to make the work 
as attractive as possible, as well as to leave out the dry 
tables, figures and other unnecessary things that are hard 
to memorize, usually found in such a work. 

The new theories have all been thoroughly discussed 
and accepted by Prof. C. H. Churchill, of Oberlin, Ohio. 
The author worked at these alone for about ten years. 
Things that once seemed impossible, became possible by 
experiments and study. All force is thoroughly defined, 
and the causes of every movement, as far as touched 
upon, is fully pointed out ; and, that too, in a way that 
it will be hard for you to discard. 

The new theories are: Force, Falling Bodies (illus- 
trated and defined), Cause of Nebulae, Cause of Rotation 
of the Earth upon her axis, Cause of Revolution of the 
Earth about the Sun, and of the revolution of the Moon 
about the Earth, and the cause of the interior heat of 
the earth (illustrated), cause of the shape of a comet, 
cause of the different mountains, northern lights and 



Pkefacb. 

electricity discussed, cause of the heat and light of the 
sun. 

The remainder of the work is a progressive course of 
popular views and accepted theories of astronomy. Each 
subject is treated in detail. Last is an alphabetical etymo- 
logical vocabulary of astronomical terms. Many minor 
subjects are treated in this, as well as origin of names, 
their definitions, etc. 

Prof. Churchill, in a letter to me, says, "In truth your 
thoughts were so clearly expressed, that from the first I 
entertained a high respect for the author." 

Hoping that the public will favorably receive this 
work, and that those who are friends of, and who wish 
to make themselves acquainted with the science of as- 
tronomy, will read it with much care. I remain, 
Your humble servant, 

MILTON W. RAMSEY. 



ASTRONOMY: 

(Geeek, Aster, a Star, and JVomos, a law.) 

IT IS THE SGIEME THAT TREATS OF THE HEAYENLY BODIES. 



The Earth, a small speck, in space, is surrounded on all 
sides by stars, and it makes no difference on what part of 
the globe we be, we see the same phenomena. 

In the day time, in place of seeing thousands of stars, 
we see a glorious orb, whose rays light up and whose 
heat warms up the whole earth. This is the Sun, which 
is also a star, differing but little from the other fixed 
stars in his structure, but differing widely in light and 
heat. This is because he is the nearest star to us. 

The Sun is at the centre of the solar system, and by his 
enormous gravitation, combined with that of the Uni- 
verse, he rules all the bodies in our system of planets. 

There is also another large body in space which we 
call the Moon, whose light is only sunshine at second 
hand. It is a small planet of the Sun, like the Earth. 
Ifes size being due to its extreme nearness to us. 

There are other stars called planets, of which our earth 
is one. They all revolve about the sun in different 
periods. We shall try to explain each in detail further 
on. 

Force. — There are four forces on the earth : Gravita- 
tion, Heat, Animal Force, and Muscular Energy. The 



6 Elements of 

latter is not an independent force, but a dependant one, 
depending on gravitation. For instance : 4 horse could 
not pull the sixteenth part of an ounce if he weighed 
nothing, yet he could move his legs and body the same 
as now. There is still another force called "elasticity," 
but it is also a dependant one. A watch may run with- 
out any other force except the spring, but as the struc- 
ture of the watch depends upon the man that made and 
wound it up, it is a dependant force ; so in reality the 
two last mentioned forces are not forces, unless combined 
with other forces. 

Therefore there are but three real forces on the earth : 
Gravitation, Heat, and Animal Force. Gravitation, 
which is the greatest of the three, is occupied solely in 
drawing every thing nearer the centre of the earth if pos- 
sible. By it alone nothing could possibly move except 
to fall nearer the centre of the earth. 

Heat is a force which tends to drive all < queous vapor 
or matter from the earth. It is employed, also by man 
as a force to melt down iron and miuerals generally; to 
expand solids, as in setting tire on a wheel, and in multi- 
tudes of ways. 

By heat and gravitation combined every movement in 
either water, gas, air or vapor are caused, therefore, every 
machine on earth that runs either by water, wind or 
steam, run by these two forces combined. For example: 

The heat of the Sun playing upon the waters of the 
earth causes evaporation, and the vapors thus generated 
being lighter than air, rise and diffuse themselves in the 
warm atmosphere until it becomes heavily charged. 
Meantime the heat of the Sun playing upon the far dis- 
tant land heats it, causing the comparatively dry air 



ASTROKOMY. 7 

there to expand and rise leaving a partial vacuum. Then, 
the heavy air from the water rushes in that direction 
(causing the wind to blow) to fill up the vacuum. If it 
meets a cold current of air, the vapor in the warm air is 
turned into mist, and a cloud is formed, and rain falls 
upon the land, the waters fall to the lowest places and 
form springs, brooks, creeks, and rivers, and there run 
down to the ocean again; if they pass a mill their weight 
may be brought to bear upon the machinery so that in 
reality the mill runs by these two forces; gravitation and 
heat combined. 

Animals could not possibly live without heat and 
gravitation. By gravitation and their own power of 
locomotion they can walk, jump and run. 

Everything on the Earth that moves is impelled by two 
or more of these forces. 

Man's inventions are the same as himself and will not 
work without him to operate them. 

Electric currents are produced by friction and friction 
is produced by two or more of these forces. So when 
you trace a movement back you find its origin here and 
no where else. 

If another independent force could be produced equal 
to gravitation and opposite to it, it would not be a work 
of very great difficulty to invent perpetual motion. But 
that force cannot be found except in those above named, 
and these are used in our every day life. 

The force of expansion by heat tends to expand all 
matter and leave it no denser, in space, at one place than 
at another. It is, in fact, the opposite to gravitation, 
and were it not for gravitation all matter would be ex- 
panded in this w T ay, provided it were hot enough. 



8 Elements of 

So we must not be misled by the laws of expansion and 
condensation, for these are due to gravitation and heat. 

If we wish to learn science to the bottom we must go 
down to the bottom to commence, and we find by experi- 
menting and in numerous ways that gravitation is the 
bed stone of science. So here is its foundation. So it 
seems that the Great Creator placed all matter in space 
and gave it the laws of gravitation and heat, and by 
these laws everything we see was created or formed into 
its present form. All but living things God must have 
made them. The body of a men is but dirt, which is 
easily proven, but his life or soul is something else* and 
he must have got that from the Great Creator. 

A machine cannot run by one force. Matter cannot 
move by one force, except in a straight line. 

Show me a machine that runs with one force and I 
will show you perpetual motion. 

Show me a machine that runs without gravitation, in 
any form, and I will show you perpetual motion. A 
watch runs without gravitation while it runs but when 
it runs down, it then depends upon a man to wind it up, 
and were it not for gravitation it would be an impossibil- 
ity for him to do it, for he could not live without gravi- 
tation. Two or more forces will run any machine but 
one force will run nothing. One force at least in any 
machine must be gravitation. No machine can run 
without it, and no machine can run with it in one direc- 
tion, al )ue. 

There is not the slightest particle of power in centri- 
fugal force, and it must not be considered as a force of 
its own, but a borrowed force. To prove this I con- 



ASTKOXOMY. 9 

structed a naachine which cost me considerable time and 
money, which if it had not proved, it would of itself have 
been perpetual motion. All the force there is in it, is 
stored into it by the force that starts it, therefore the 
force that starts it is its real force. For instance : 
If we could place a balance wheel upon unfrictionable 
axis and outside of our atmosphere where there would not 
be the slightest particle of friction and, then, start it to 
revolving with the finger, it would revolve for a thousand 
years. Of course, the wheel would have centrifugal force 
during all this time, but we stored the force into it when 
we started it, and it would never stop until it should meet 
the same amount of friction to annul the force. So it 
takes the same amount of power to stop the wheel as it 
takes to start it. No more nor no less. 

In open space, where there is no atmosphere, there can 
possibly be but one force and that force must be gravita- 
tion. Heat is caused by gravitation, as a general thing. 
Remove gravitation and it would be impossible for us to 
produce heat in any way. 

Electric currents are caused by friction, and friction is 
produced by gravitation. Can you produce friction 
without using gravitation in any form? Cold comes from 
above. It is in fact, the natural state of open space. 
The heat of the Sun passes through it without changing it. 
It penetrates our atmosphere the same as it penetrates 
our garments; our outside garments are the coldest. It 
comes down within five miles of the earth's surface even 
at the equator; it comes through our garments; it shows 
itself in the shape of snow and ice on the tops of high 
mountains; our extremities, the fingers, toes and nose are 
the first to get cold; the lower strata of the air are kept 



LO Elements of 

warm owing to the radiation of heat from the Earth; 
our inside clothing is kept warm owing to the radiation 
of heat from the body; stop the radiation of heat from the 
earth and the earth would soon become a frozen mass; if 
our body die we soon become cold, so we see where all 
the cold we are acquainted with comes from. 

Man is but a small engine made by the Great Creator 
and placed here upon earth to run by two forces, (name- 
ly, his own power of locomotion and gravitation. Re- 
move gravitation and the machine is dead, remove his 
own power of locomotion and the machine is dead), it 
runs for a short time and then falls to the earth by the 
law of gravitation, becomes imbedded in the crust, there 
forever to remain unless raised therefrom by some higher 
power. 

It seems when we come to sum it up that there is but 
one real force and that force is gravitation, and that all 
other so called forces are nothing but branches from it. 

Falling Bodies. — There are three general laws on 
falling bodies. 1st. If we drop a ball from any height 
it will fall through 16 1-12 feet the first second. If we 
measure at right angles to the perpendicular line at the 
surface where the ball will strike any number of feet and 
then take the distance from where the ball started on the 
perpendicular line to where we find it at the end of the 
first second, we get a number. Multiply this by three 
we get the distance the ball will pass through the next 
second and multiply the same 16 1-12 by five we get the 
distance for the third second and so on, multiplying by 
the odd number which corresponds with the given second, 
7, 9, 11, etc. Here we see the ball is ruled entirely by 
one force; gravitation in one direction only. 



Astronomy. 11 

2d. In the second of Kepler's laws, we find that "the 
radius-vector of a planet will describe equal area in equal 
times." This we find is a very different law from the first. 
It is caused by gravitation in two directions in place of 
one, which I will try to prove. 

3d, The radius-vector of Venus describes more area 
than the radius vector of Mercury, in one day, and this 
increases on all the planets according to the distance 
from the sun. The following table will test the truth of 
this. If we represent the distance of Mercury from the 
sun by 17.6965 and all the rest of the planets according- 
ly we get the area, and area described in one day, as fol- 
lows : 

Total area inside of orbit. Area described in one day by radius vector. 

Mercury, 983.8426 - - - 11.1832 

Venus, 3434.7970 • - 15.2861 

Earth, 6565.5080 - - - 17.9764 

Mars, 15242.9123 - - 22.1897 

Jupiter, 177723.3202 - - - 41.0201 

This seems to dispute the second law, but that law is 
right, we find, notwithstanding. For instance, when a 
planet is at aphelion, it moves down grade toward the 
center of the Sun, to perihelion, of course, then, it moves 
with an increasing velocity, as it gains velocity its radius 
vector diminishes accordingly, and at perihelion its 
radius -vector describes the same area, in the same time it 
describes it at aphelion, but on two planets, one at 
aphelion and the other at perihelion, and both move 
around the Sun at the same time, this law would not hold 
good; when the planet leaves perihelion it moves up grade 
as it were, and in so doing loses all the velocity it gains 



12 



Elements op 



O 16 l-12ft 




•O80 5-12ft 



FIG. 1. 
Fibst Law on Falling Bodies Illustrated. 



This was, of course, known "before, but I illustrate it to show the truth of 
the second and third laws. 



Astronomy. 



13 



ORB?T 




FIG. 2. 
Second Law on Falling Bodies Illustrated. 

The orbit is supposed to be eliptical with the Sun at one of its foci, and the 
two areas are supposed to be the same. 

The planet at A will move to B in the same time it will move from C to Z>, 
then, of course, the radius-vector will describe equal area in equal times. 

This shows that the planet is ruled by two forces instead of one, and as cen- 
trifugal force is no force of itself, but a borrowed force, we must look to gravita- 
tion for the force from which it is borrowed, and that force is fully illustrated on 
page 18. 



14 



Elements of 
« *fl 



ft?/ 
of 



Pi I 
K I 







FIG. 3. 
Thibd Law on Falling Bodies Illustrated. 

The gravitation of the Sun is less at Jupiter than at Mercury, and this law 
shows how much less it is. 

At A B the planets are all supposed to be in a line with the Sun ; at CD 
they have all moved, but they are no longer in a Hue with the Sun, but they are 
all in a line themselves. Mercury has moved farther, in the same time, than 
Jupiter, therefore, the two lines are nearer together at Jupiter than at Mercury, 
and if we knew how much these lines converge to the mile, we could tell the 
distance of a planet from the Sun by the periodic time, because it will move 
from one line to the other at any place. 



Astroxomt. 15 

in falling from aphelion to perihelion, no more nor no less. 
Notwithstanding the radius-vector of Venus describes 
more area in one day than the radius-vector of Mercury 
the radius-vector of Venus describes less area to each 
million of miles from the Sun than the radius-vector of 
mercury (see Fig. 3) and it varies on all the planets 
the same. So if we knew how great this variation is to 
the million of miles we could readily tell the distance of 
any planet from the Sun by this law without the parallax. 

Nebulae. — It seems that the solar system was once a 
nebula, consisting of a part of a ring which was thrown 
off by the great nebula, our universe, and that each 
strata, commencing at the center of this nebula, formed 
into a ring which afterward formed into a nebula, which 
formed into a planet. To render this intelligible, let us 
suppose that our Earth was once a ring thrown off by the 
nebula of which all the planets and Sun were formed, 
extending clear around the center of the mass. Now the 
denser part of the ring would attract the less dense part 
and cause it to begin to draw itself up, finally the ring 
would break in the weakest place and owing to the at- 
traction of the dense part or body of the ring, the space 
where it broke, between the two ends would grow wider 
and wider. Now we will call the part before the body 
the head of the ring, and the part behind the body the 
tail. 

Owing to the attraction of the body of the ring the 
head would not move forward around the centre of the 
mass as fast as the body, because it is attracted back by 
the body, but the tail would move faster than the bod}' 
because it is attracted forward by the body, so we see 
why the space between the head and the tail would grow 



16 Elements of 

wider and wider until in the course of time the ring 
would not extend more than one fourth the distance 
around the sun. (See Fig. 4). The head and body of 
the ring are moving forward around the sun at nearly the 
same rate. The body, however, pulls back on the head 
by the attraction of gravity and slightly checks its speed. 
At this point the whole mass is kept from falling into 
the Sun by its own centrifugal force generated independ- 
antly by its great velocity in going around the Sun. As 
soon as the head's velocity is checked its centrifugal 
force is of course diminished and it shows it by falling a 
little toward the Sun as at A. (-See Fig. 4). The center 
of the whole mass is moving along its common orbit at a 
great velocity. In a short time the head will fall between 
the body and the Sun. Meantime the tail has been gain- 
ing velocity because the body has attracted it forward. 
Its speed being increased its centrifugal force (away from 
the Sun) has also increased and the tail has risen com- 
pletely above its common orbit till it is soon in opposition 
and the head in conjunction and the body and tail are 
going faster than the head. They will soon pass it and the 
instant they do so their attraction begins to help the 
head in its eastward journey. It feels the impulse, its 
velocity is increased, its centrifugal force (away from the 
sun) grows stronger, and of course it rises gradually to a 
greater distance from him. The head's velocity has again 
become the same as that of the body and is gaining. Its 
distance from the sun is also the same as that of the body 
and now its increasing velocity and consequent centrifu- 
gal force makes it rise completly above its common orbit 
till soon it is in opposition and is moving faster than the 
body. It soon goes ahead of the body. The tail is pulled 



Astronomy. 17 

back by the attraction of the body and head, and will 
have, therefore, fallen toward the sun and is soon in in- 
ferior conjunction, and the head in opposition, and now 
we have lost all trace of the ring, it is no longer a ring, - 
but a complete nebula of its own, as at (B. see Fig. 4), so 
we see that the gravitation of the ring and the gravita- 
tion of the sun combined, have caused the ring to revolve 
upon its axis. 

We now see where the moon got her eastward impulse, 
also w r e see why the earth commenced to revolve upon 
her axis. It was because the very matter of which both 
earth and moon were composed, was revolving upon its 
axis before either moon or earth were formed. 

Can you tell why this should not be so when the law of 
gravitation teaches us that it can be so without the 
slightest particle of call for any other force to give the 
moon her i evolution about the earth! Now would begin 
the raining down of matter, all the matter in the 
nebula, whose velocity around the centre of the mass is 
not strong enough to give it centrifugal force sufficient 
to keep it from falling, will fall to the centre and form a 
body there, and as this body grows larger and larger, its 
attraction grows stronger and stronger, and draws harder 
and harder on the matter until all the matter has fallen 
to the centre, or if the centrifugal force (away from the 
centre) is strong enough to keep any of it from falling, it 
will form into a ring and the ring will form into a nebu- 
la by the attraction of itself and the attraction of the 
body at the centre combined, and the nebula thus formed 
will form into a Moon. Now we can readily see why the 
Earth was once a molton sphere. Let us just imagine 
how it would be at present if all the matter of which the 



18 



Elements of 




FIG. 4. 

At A the ring commences to rotate, owing to the gravitation of the Sun and 
the gravitation of the ring combined. 

At B it is no longer a ring, hut a nebula. Every particle of matter in it has 
the same motion of our moon. 

At C most of the matter has fallen and formed the Earth. It is a molten 
sphere. The nebula is forming of which the Moon is to be formed. 

At D the Earth has passed her azoic age. She is now inhabitable. The 
Moon is formed. 



Elements of 19 

Earth is composed were to come pouring through our 
atmosphere in the shape of metoers. We know that it 
would produce heat. If the ring is evenly distributed 
throughout its entire orbit so that one place will not 
attract itself more then another the ring would never 
break but always be a ring. 

This we have in the rings of Saturn. 

And if the centrifugal force of the nebula is so great 
that no matter will fall to the centre of the nebula but 
leave the centre by being thrown away from it, as it were, 
(there being no attracting body at the centre, and the 
centrifugal force strong), no body will form at the centre 
of the nebula, but the nebula will be a ring nebula, and 
always be so. Now we can see the cause of the ring ne- 
bula3. This theory, of course, provides that the body at 
the centre, if any there be, is always the first body to 
form. It is forming while the rings are forming and, 
therefore, as soon as the rings are formed there is an at- 
tracting body at the centre of the nebula to form the 
rings into planets or Moons, (as is shown in Fig. 4). 

The expression used before by Astronomers in giving a 
description of the "Nebula Hypothesis" "that the great 
mass of gaseous matter which once formed the origin of 
the system in cooling, threw off rings which in turn 
cooled into balls of gas and also threw off rings, to form 
satellites'' could be very easily understood if I could find 
two forces in this "threw off" but I find only one force 
used. No cause of this "threw off" is given except that 
the great ball of gas in cooling "shrank away and left 
the ring." Why did the ring not shrink down with it ? 

If there was but one force given, our Universe would 
all be in one great ball at the centre. 



20 Astronomy. 

I say again "matter cannot move by one force, except 
in a straight line." I know I stand alone in this, but I 
cannot help it. A ring may receive a Rotary, or centri- 
fugal impulse, but it takes two forces to give this impulse. 
Can you give an impulse and use only one force ? You 
cannot, and neither can matter,, 

This is but foolish reasoning, if I should use such a 
word. There are two forces in every thing that moves, 
yet these two forces may be gravitation in two directions 
at the same time. 

Does not Fig. 4 exactly illustrate the cause of a nebula . 
If not, point out the causes. 

Professor C. H. Churchill, of the Oberlin College, Ober- 
lin, 0., in his review on the foregoing theories, says. "I 
find no fault with the reasoning or illustrations." Also 
he says, "A sufficient reason for the revolution of the 
Earth upon her axes is given as illustrated on page 14." 

Cause of a Comet. — Heat is a force which tends to 
drive all equous vapor or matter from the heated body. 

For instance: Drop a drop of cold water on a level 
piece of smooth, hot iron, it will ball up and roll from 
place to place till there is none of it left. As soon as 
the drop of water touches the iron it receives an impulse 
directly from the iron, but gravitation holds it down so 
that it cannot leave the iron only a little; it falls back 
but it is not likely to strike the same side down that re- 
ceived the first impulse; if not, the ball will at once 
commence to roll, and as the impulse is always behind 
the drop and gravitation directly under it, it will con- 
tinue to roll forward. Pour a little cold water into a 
slightly convex bottom tin vessel and set the vessel on a 
smooth, level piece of hot iron it will rock to and fro, 



Elements of 21 

back and forth, hither and thither and continue to rock 
as long as there is any water left in the vessel. As the 
bottom of the vessel is convex, of course, only a small 
portion of it can touch the iron at a time, it receives an 
impulse there, this sets it over a little, it receives another 
impulse here, but it cannot go on over and roll like the 
drop for the vessel is not a sphere, it must go back; but 
as the first impulse is still felt, the two impulses combined 
give it another impulse and set it oyer in another direc- 
tion and it continues to rock. Of course, gravitation is 
far the strongest force, were it not for that, the heat 
would drive all the water out of the vessel. Now we 
know that the vessel cannot move by one force, therefore 
we see here are two distinct forces exactly opposite to 
each other. 

There are many experiments like these that can be tried 
if it were necessary, to prove that heat is a force, directly 
from the heated body. 

From the above experiments we can readily see what a 
comet is. It is a ball of very light gas surrounded by a 
thin atmosphere. The attraction of the coma or head 
has less power on this atmosphere than the pressure of 
the heat of the sun, the heat, therefore, drives the 
atmosphere off; it cannot entirely leave the coma but fol- 
lows it afar off. 

Now the very shape of a Comet is sufficient to show 
that there is something coming from the sun that causes 
the tail, and that something is nothing but the repulsive 
power of the heat of the sun playing upon its atmosphere. 

When a comet is in open space or very far from the 
sun, no doubt it is a perfect sphere, but, as it begins to 
approach the sun his heat is felt and then a tail com- 



22 Astronomy. 

mences to form and it grows longer and longer the nearer 
and nearer it gets to the sun. But when the comet goes 
back into the depths of space the tail settles back around 
the coma and the thing is again a perfect sphere. 

From this a Comet cannot weigh to exceed a few 
pounds at greatest, and the longer the tail the lighter it is. 

The rays of the Sun shining upon the atmosphere of a 
comet causes its light. There can be no danger of a 
Comet ever falling upon the Earth, for the weight of the 
largest Comet cannot be greater than that of a cubic rod 
of the Earth's atmosphere at the surface of the Earth. In 
fact, they are so exceedingly diffused that we can see 
stars through them even at the coma or head. The tail 
of a comet always points directly from the sun, whether 
the comet be approaching or leaving the sun. 

Seme astronomers say that the tail of a Comet is burn- 
ing gas, that is, it is a hot mass. Now the tail is so ex- 
ceedingly expanded that we can see stars through it 
where the tail is thousands and thousands of miles in 
diameter, then if light can so easily pass through it 3 why 
not the cold? When we come to know that space is an 
extreme cold place, we will soon discard this idea. 

If it were warm in space the upper regions of our 
atmosphere would be warm, in place of cold. 

Mountain Chains. — It seems that mountains on the 
Earth were formed by gravitation and not by an upward 
force from below as is now taught by some scientist. 

Let us suppose we construct a very heavy arch made of 
stone. We may first make a frame work of wood just 
the rounding shape we want the arch and strong enough 
to hold it up. Now we suppose the arch to be construct- 
ed and that all the stone in it are of very strong stone, 



Astroxomy. 23 

all but the key stone, that is too soft to hold up the heavy 
arch. 

Xow let us suppose that the frame work is not resting 
on sound footing, but that the arch itself is. Suppose 
again that the frame work will settle down and leave the 
arch unsupported. 

Then, of course, the arch must stand out in bold relief 
from the frame work or mash the key stone up and settle 
down on the frame work again. Suppose the key stone 
mashes up. What will happen ? We will find a long 
narrow ridge extending clear across the arch. This is a 
"mountain chain" and the arch, though once smooth, is 
no longer smooth, but has a mountain across its top. 

It was so precisely the same with the earth, as the 
molten interior cooled down it contracted the same as do 
all other hot bodies in cooling, and as it shrank away 
from the crust, the heavy weighted crust, like that of the 
arch, was compelled to either hold itself up and stand 
out in bold relief from the molten interior or crush to- 
gether in the weakest places and let itself down upon the 
molten interior again. It was compelled to do this, or 
the crust would be too large for the molten interior, as it 
did, the crust bulged up in the weakest places and left 
long, narrow, insignificant ridges, which we call "moun- 
tain chains." 

Had it not have done this the crust would now be too 
large for the molten interior and there would be a partial 
vacuum between the crust and it. 

When lava rushes out through the crater of a volcano, 
it tends to leave a vacuum behind it and the heavy crust 
must settle down to fill up the vacuum. If the crust did 
not settle down the lava would not rush out, unless the 



24 ^Elements of 

molten interior should become hotter than it originally 
was, and therefore, expand a little. Now it may be the 
heavy crust resting on the molten interior that causes the 
lava to rush out. If so, these mountains or cones are 
also caused by gravitation. The latter seems to be the 
case from the fact that when a volcanic eruption takes 
place the crust will settle down a little in one place, 
generally, and rise up a little in another. The thin crust 
which was before bent out of shape a little, now assumes 
its natural curved shape again. 

Now heat is not always caused by gravitation directly, 
but often by chemical action, by stoppage of motion in 
any dir3ction. Pressure by gravitation is one of the 
frequent causes. But to remove gravitation it would be 
impossible to produce heat. So then the interior heat of 
the earth must have been caused by gravitation while the 
matter of which the earth was formed was falling upon 
it as is illustrated on page 18. Then we can safely say 
that gravitation is the sole cause of all mountains and 
upheaved land. 

There are four classes of mountains, then: 

Mountain chains caused by gravitation. 

Volcanoes, very probably caused by the crust of the 
earth resting on the molten interior and causing the lava 
to rush out through volcanic craters. 

Eruptions or upheaved land caused by heat which is 
caused by gravitation. Water or some other gases, get 
between the crust and molten interior and generate 
steam or expand, which rends the crust and causes earth- 
quakes or puffs up the crust, causing these disturbances. 

Dry Cinder Cones are the fourth class. They are 
caused by the interior heat driving the dry cinders and 



Astronomy. 25 

ashes out through the crater of these volcanoes to the top 
of the crater wall and leaves them there unsupported; they 
fallback by .gravitation and lodge on the wall causing the 
wall to build up faster than the surrounding crust of the 
Earth 

Professor C. H. Churchill, in regard to the first of these 
classes of mountains says : "Gravitation is a force from 
below but does not directly push upward, indirectly it 
may and does." On the other classes he says: "Heat 
is not always caused by gravitation, but often by 
chemical action, by stoppage of motion in any direction. 
Pressure from gravitation is one of the frequent causes. 
But the others may be in operation in the interior of 
volcanoes or under them." 

Northek Lights astd Electricity. — On the night of 
September the 3d, 1881; or the night of August the 4th, 
1882, and on the morning of October the 6th, 1882. I 
saw streamers of Aurora Borealis in the south. On the 
night of November the 17th, 1882^, I saw the same 
phenomenon, and in the morning of November the 20th, 
1882, about five o'clock the most gorgeous phenomena 
occurred that could possibly be witnessed by man. The 
whole heavens were lighted up by streamers of silver fire. 
As they shot their long well defined beams upward, they 
appeared violet, passing through all the colors of the 
spetrum down to blood red, and a brilliant white light. 

The streamers appeared like stupendeous cataracts whose 
upper extremities were at the summit of heaven, only they 
were running in the opposite direction. I could see to 
pick up a pin in the yard. I took a straight edge and 
plumb, and after setting and plumbing the straight edge 
perpendicular, I found that the streamers in the east and 



26 Elements op 

west leaned south, and crossed the straight edge at an 
angle of about fifteen degrees, while those north and 
south pointed exactly toward the zenith; that those south 
east, northwest, southwest, and northeast leaned south 
and crossed the straight edge at an angle of about seven 
and a half degrees; that at a point nearer north and south 
than this they leaned less and less as I turned nearer and 
nearer north and south. While nearer and nearer east 
and west than this they leaned more and more. 

This experiment showed me, beyond a doubt that all 
the streamers leaned south the same, and that they stood 
one here, another there, like so many trees, and there 
was every reason to believe that the spots that appeared 
in the corona (which was about 15 degrees south of the 
zenith) which wavered to and fro, back and forth, hither 
and thither, were nothing but streamers running directly 
from me (because they were streamers everywhere eke), 
and that the cause of the streamers converging to a point 
at the corona was simply due to distance. 

The streamers were liable to great change in a moment 
of time. If I could see the electricity start from the 
lower extremity of the streamer it would pass through its 
whole length in a moment of time. There were no 
sparks like those seen in an ordinary thunder shower, 
nor the light was not as brilliant as that of lightning. 
Yet it was sufficient to show that electricity caused them 
all. Lightning is electricity passing through the con- 
densed air at the surface of the earth rending the air with 
violence and giving forth an explosive sound. The 
Aurora Borealis is the silent passage of electricity through 
rarified air in the upper regions of the atmosphere. 
We know what causes lightning to dart from a cloud to 



Astronomy. 27 

the earth but we have never been able to tell what causes 
the electricity to leave the earth in the shape of Aurora 
Borealis. There are two kinds of electricity a so-called 
"negative" and "positive." 

An electric machine is of no use whatever to shock a 
person unless it has two conductors of electricity, one 
to convey the negative and the other the positive elec- 
tricity, and when a, so called, current of positive elec- 
tricity moves off from a machine an equally heavy cur- 
rent of negative must come upon it. If we take hold of 
the positive or negative knob at the end of the conduc- 
tor of an electric machine we will feel no shock, no dif- 
ference how fast the machine is operated. But if we 
take hold of the opposite knob at the same time we 
receive a shock. It is impossible to let go, for the harder 
the machine is operated the tighter and tighter the 
knobs stick to the hands until the muscles are drawn out 
of shape. Now we may take a line of men a mile long 
and let them join hands, and let one, at one end of the 
line take hold of the positive ball or knob, and the one 
at the other end take hold of the negative the currents of 
electricity will run through the whole line of men and 
each man will receive a shock. Also we may put one 
ball into water, either running water or standing, and 
hold the other in the hand and then put either hand or 
foot into the water we will receive a shock. When a 
heavy cloud is over the earth, it becomes heavily charged 
with either one kind or the other of electricity. 
If it be negatively charged a positive spark may dart from 
the earth to the cloud or a negative one from the cloud 
to the earth. No eye could see which way it went, and 
one would be just as fatal as the other if they pass 



28 Elements of 

through the body. When a positive spark darts from the 
cloud it is met by a negative spark from the earth and 
the two neutralize each other. Now it is evident that ii 
a lightning rod reached from the earth to the cloud and 
then sever it and take hold of one end in one hand and 
the other in the other we would receive an electric shock. 

A telegraph wire is only a conductor of electricity, and 
were it not^placed in the air and not connected with the 
ground at any place by a conductor it would be of no use 
whatever. But as it is attached to the ground at each- 
end and fastened to the posts by non-conductors, a cur- 
rent of electricity will run over it from one end of the 
wire to the other, but there is an equally heavy current 
running along on or in the ground to complete the cir- 
cuit, without which no electricity can ever start from its 
source. So if the ground was no conductor of electricity 
it would be an impossibility to send a message over a 
wire, unless two wires w 7 ere made to complete the circuit. 

All the phenomena of electricity are due to the sepera- 
tion of the two kinds of electricity, which when separated 
have a violent attraction for each other which they con- 
stantly exhibit. No light can be produced where the 
two conductors are connected but where they are discon- 
nected, and the two kinds of electricit3 T are compelled to 
jump the break causing a movement in a medium of 
greater or less resistance produce the light. 

Now it cannot be possible that the attraction of elec- 
tricity is the same as the attraction of the earth for a 
stone 5 for if it were so, all the electricity in space would 
soon pile up into a large ball and never move thereafter. 
But it seems that when an electric machine is made to 
produce electricity, it produces both kinds, or rather sets 



Astronomy. 2'j 

them in motion, and one runs off from the machine od 
one conductor, and the other on the other. As they 
meet they neutralize each other and then pass on, one in 
one direction and the other in the other, and that they 
are continually passing through each other. In fact, all 
discussion and experiment of electricity in any way 
proves this to be the case. 

When a current of electricity moves off from an elec- 
tric machine on a conductor, and when it comes to the 
end of the same, it cannot go back over it, but if it is 
connected with the other conductor it will go back over 
that; so the positive electricity will run from the elec 
trie machine on the positive conductor and return to the 
machine by the negative one, while the negative current 
will go off from the machine on the negative conductor 
and return to it on the positive one. 

The Sun. — We find that the planets nearer the Sun, 
for the most part, are heavier than those farthest off. 
Also we find that the Earth is about twice as heavy as 
our Moon. This is not strange when we come to con- 
sider that the heaviest matter always settles nearest the 
centre of the body it is on. Were it not for this we 
could find metals in their natural state floating in our 
clouds or water. 

Why does it not settle then on a Nebula. Looking at 
the diagram on page 18, we see that our solar system 
was once a Nebula. Its very shape is yet that of a 
Nebula. In its earliest stage its centrifugal force was 
nothing, and it began to revolve gradually at first, and 
then more and more gradually faster, till its matter re- 
ceived the centrifugal force (away from the centre) they 
now have. Why, then, would not the heaviest matter 



30 Elements of 

settle first toward the centre of the mass ? It would. 
There can be no doubt of it. Then, why is not the Sun 
the heaviest body in our system ? Strange to say it is 
only about one-fourth as heavy as our earth, bulk for 
bulk. What can be the cause of this? Can it be expan- 
sion caused by heat ? If so, why is not his light shut off 
from us by metalic clouds ? 

Here is the cause. The earth has water and there are 
many good reasons for us to suppose that the rest of the 
planets have water; from the fact that Mars has snow 
and clouds and the rest have clouds. This certainly 
could not be the case had they no evaporable matter. 
Knowing these facts, why is it that the Sun has no water? 
Where is such reasoning founded? Can it be that the 
Sun has driven all the water that belonged to him onto 
the planets by his heat? That would be impossible. 
Can it be, that the heaviest matter has settled down and 
left the water? Then, why is not the Sun the heaviest 
body in the solar system ? If the Sun has water, then, 
where is it ? Is it between us and the Photosphere ? If 
so, why does it not shut off the Sun's light from us ? Is 
it below the Photosphere ? If so, the Photosphere must 
be lighter than steam and floating on top of it. These 
are facts that we cannot get rid of. 

Now let us lay all former supposition aside and deal 
with facts only. 

Let us suppose that the Sun has water the same as the 
rest of the planets, and that he is a planet the same as the 
rest, composed of the same kind of matter, and is in 
reality a part of our system of planets. No more nor no 
less as to different kind of matter, and that he has his 
share of the 64 chemical elements of which the earth and 



Astronomy. 31 

everything else is composed. Then, he mast have more 
or less water. But where is it? 

Putting these facts together, we can safely say that the 
Sun has water. But as he is white hot his water is 
turned into steam and his future ocean is now spread 
about him in the shape of a great blanket of steam more 
than a hundred thousand miles deep, and that this is the 
cause of his being so light; and that we can see only the 
upper extremities of this steam. 

Then, if he has water, he must have clouds, and in 
them there must be electric phenomena, the same as 
there is on the earth, only to a great deal greater extent. 
Then, the most vivid lightnings must be playing in his 
clouds; lightnings, of which a single bolt would be 
greater than all the chains in the most terrific thunder 
storm on Earth put together; lightnings that would 
dwarf anything we can imagine into insignificence. 
Then we may suppose that part of the light received from 
the Sun is electric light. We say part, because there is 
reason to believe that some of it comes from the glowing 
gases of iron and other minerals which the spectroscope 
show us that his photosphere contains. We found in 
the theory showing us how the earth was formed that the 
solar system was once a Nebula consisting of a part of a 
ring which was thrown off by the great Nebula, our own 
universe, we found also that the earth was formed by the 
raining down of matter which was compelled to pass 
through the atmosphere like Meteors at the present day. 
This of course, was the cause of the interior heat. Then 
we may suppose that the sun got his heat the same way. 
But as he is so exceedingly much larger and his atmos- 
phere so much thicker, and his gravitation so much 



32 Elements op 

stronger than that of the earth, we may suppose that he 
would be hotter. 

Looking at a meteor as it enters our atmosphere we 
see a light nearly exactly the same as that given out by 
the Sun. Now let us suppose that those meteors were 
to come in as thick as rain, the whole heavens would be 
a perfect light, and if this was kept up for a long period 
of time the iron and other metals would soon begin to 
melt as it come into the air, owing to the great heat of 
the air and the friction produced in its flight through it, 
till soon the whole atmosphere would not only be filled 
with steam from the water, but would also be filled with 
the glowing gases of iron, cademum, mercury, sodium, 
and many other substances. This heat would be more 
and more intense the larger and larger the body would 
grow, and more and more expanded, the hotter and hot- 
ter it got, till the atmosphere would be a glowing mass 
from surface to the upper extremities. Now that must 
have been the case with the Sun, and it is very probable 
that this glowing mass extended to the upper extremities 
of his atmosphere in his earliest era. As soon as the 
matter ceased falling from the Nebula, and the planets 
were formed this glowing mass would begin to cool down 
and settle year by year. This would naturally lead 
astronomers to suppose that the entire system was once 
a Nebular Hypothesis" and that the sun was once as 
large as the Earth's &rbit, or the orbit of Neptune. But 
this was not the case. Now we can see what the Sun 
really is. It is a planet the same as the rest of the plan- 
ets, surrounded with a dense atmosphere filled with steam 
and also the glowing gases of iron and other metals, and 
he gives out light because these substances produce a 



Astronomy. 33 

great amount of friction, and in this electricity is pres- 
ent, combined with the glowing gases of metals. The 
same causes his heat. 

This theory does not recognize the "Nebular Hypoth- 
esis'' as true, notwithstanding, it has been said that, "so 
various and constant are the positions of the bright 
bands in the spectra of the stars, and so entirely do they 
correspond with certain dark bands of the spectrum of 
the Sun that it has been affirmed that the chances for 
the correctness of the Hypothesis are something like 
three hundred millions to one!" 

This Hypothesis is, that the Sun was once a glowing 
mass of gas extending clear beyond the orbit of Neptune, 
and gradually shrank down and left the planets one by 
one, until it became as small as at present. This is like 
placing a stone in the air and making it float there by 
imagination. One is just as reasonable as the other. If 
the Sun shrinks down, I am sure his surface would 
shrink down with him. Why not? Could the Earth 
shrink down and leave a stone. If the chances are 300,- 
000,000 to 1, I will always be that "one." 

No doubt the Sun was once a great deal larger than at 
present owing to his great heat, which was caused by the 
falling of matter through his atmosphere when the whole 
solar system was a Nebula, but he shrank away and left 
no planets suspended high above his surface. The plan- 
ets were formed by gravitation, as is illustrated on page 
18. Prof. Churchill says in regard to this: "Your theory 
will do." 

Beauties of Natube. — Once a friend of mine and my- 
self were out upon a small lake fishing. There was not 
a ripple to be seen upon the water, everything was per- 



34 Elements of 

fectly calm. The summer Sun was just sinking in the 
far west, and casting his last crimson rays upon the 
water. In the east were a few holders of disappearing 
cumulous clouds with their rounded tops looking like 
great balls of cotton while their square bottom seemed 
to be resting on a level strata of air. The rising Moon 
was just making her appearance in the east. 

1 noticed far out upon the lake, that a narrow strip of 
rippling water had risen, owing to a slight gust of wind 
which had just passed over that part of the lake, causing 
the water to appear whife from where I was. Accident- 
ly I dropped my head a little, as I sat in the boat and, as 
nature would have it, the narrow strip of light disap- 
peared. I raised my head and it was still there, to lower 
my head it would disappear again. The cause of it dis- 
appearing was strange to behold, and a thing that I could 
hardly make out at first, but my friend remarked that it 
was due to the rotundness of the Earth. I saw at once 
that he was right but did not think that that could be 
seen so plainly on a small lake. 

Here was a lesson, and the best lesson on Physical 
Geography that could possibly be given. Here we could 
study nature as it naturally was. The cumulous clouds 
ancT moon in the east. The red sun in the west, while 
directly over our heads were a few streaks of cirrus or 
snowy clouds high above the snow line. On the land 
was heavy foliage, while on the water the rmndness of 
the Earth could be plainly seen; below it, could be seen 
a beautiful mirage of all that appeared above it. 

This fact is illustrated to impress upon the mind the 
fact that you can hardly ever look out upon the beautiful 
world without seeing something, in nature, to attract 



Astronomy. 35 

your attention, and thus, place roses in your path through 
the world to make it more comfortable for you, and make 
life sweeter than it would otherwise be. 

The Zodiac Light — It is a faint light seen in the 
west after twilight has ceased in the evening, and in the 
east before it commences in the morning. 

Cassini gave it the name, by which it is known, in 
16S3 in consequence of its always being in the Zodiac. 

It is shaped like a cone, with its base turned toward the 
Sun. When seen it extends from the horizon upward 
and follows the path of the Sun. For this reason it is 
hardly ever visible in our latitude as the path of the Sun 
is very oblique to the horizon. At the equator it can be 
favorably observed most of the year. In our latitude, it 
can best be seen in the evening during the months of 
April and May; and in the morning during the months 
of October and November, for the path of the Sun is 
nearer perpendicular to the plane of our horizon then 
than at any other time during the year. It is always 
more or less inclined to the horizon. Its length varies 
from 40 to 100 degrees, and its breadth at the horizon 
varies from*8 to 30 degrees. 

It is supposed to be caused by myriads of little planets 
or planetary dust between us and the Sun, one of which 
cannot cast a ray of light, but hundreds and thousands 
of them together can cast a faint ray and cause it to ap- 
pear as one diffused light. 

Such a ring of luminous matter might appear 60 de- 
grees high and not be more than 90,000,000 miles from 
the sun at any place. The light thrown out by these 
little bodies is the same as that thrown out by the large 
planets. It is sunshine at second hand. 



36 Elements of 

Space. — It is difficult at first for us to understand the 
meaning of this word. In its widest sense it means the 
great vault of the heavens in which all the stars seem to 
be fixed, but there is no end to it in any direction. In 
fact, a cannon ball could travel through space forever 
and still have just as far to travel as at first. Because 
there is no end to space. There is no direction that we 
can look that we cannot see far, far into the depths of 
space and yet no end. With the telescope we can see 
more than a thousand times farther than with the naked 
eye, and yet all that can be seen is stars and Nebulae 
(Latin, Nebula, a cloud) which are nothing but great 
clusters of stars or ball of gas far, far in the depths of 
space. Were it not for the law of gravitation our earth 
would be lost, lost in space. 

When we come to consider that our Earth travels round 
the Sun in a year at a distance of 91,480,000 miles from 
him, it seems almost impossible. But when we come to 
deal with space we find that the entire solar sj^stem is but 
a grain of sand on the shore or a drop in the infinite 
ocean of space. If the whole thing was struck out, it 
would hardly be sufficient to be called a blank in space. 

If this little speck, the Earth, was annihilated and 
leave us as we are now, we could see stars in all directions 
and yet no end. But as far as we could see would not be 
a hairs breadth in space. I can but say that I am noth- 
ing, nothing, nothing, comparatively. We are held to 
the Earth by the gravitation of our planet. We have 
gravitation the same as the Earth and attract the Earth 
the same as the Earth attracts us, but in a great deal less 
degree on account of our small size compared with that 
of the Earth, but if we could peel off the outside of the 



Astronomy. 37 

Earth, little by little, and annihilate the matter peeled 
off, our weight would grow less and less as the Earth be- 
came smaller and smaller, till the Earth and ourselves 
would be of exactly the same weight, and then both 
Earth and ourself would attract each other the 
same, and then annihilate the Earth entirely and we 
would become the attracting body and would draw every- 
thing free to move toward us by our attraction. Such 
then, is space. If we were in the depths of space and 
had two weights, one in one hand and the other in the 
other, and then throw one in one direction, and the 
other in the other and then be annihilated ourselves, the 
two weights would come together again and form one 
body. Such then is gravitation. 

The Moon.— The moon is a small body only 2,153 
miles in ^diameter. It is 49 times smaller than the 
Eaith, and 80 times lighter. The Moon, like every other 
body in our system (so far as we are able to observe them) 
rotates upon an axis, but strange, it may seem, she has 
her period of rotation and revolution about the Earth 
accomplished in the same time, therefore the Moon never 
rotates upon her axis in regard to the Earth, and her day 
and night is 29J of our days long. We never see but one 
side of the Moon, though owing to libration in latitude, 
libration in longitude and a daily libration, we can see 
about 4-7 of the Moon, at different times. 

A powerful telescope will magnify an object a thous- 
and times. If the Moon were a thousand times nearer to 
us than it is, we would see it as if it was but 240 miles 
off. The Moon is seen by astronomers as if it was at 
this near distance, and the whole of its surface, turned 



38 Elements of 

toward us, has been mapped with considerable correct- 
ness. 

Seec with the naked eye the Moon appears in places 
black or dark, while in others it is very much lighter. 
The telescope shows that the dark markings are low 
plains and the bright spots are mountain ranges, broken 
up in the most tremendous manner. It is supposed that 
the Moon was once partly covered with water, and that 
the darkest spots are old ocean beds, but the Moon has 
neither water nor atmosphere at present. There are 
theories put forth to show what has become of its water, 
but it is not yet beyond controversy. 

The Earth has volcanoes and so has the Moon, but the 
volcanoes on the Moon would dwarf anything we can 
imagine into insignificance. There are thirty-nine 
mountain peaks on the side of the Moon next us over 
15,000 feet high. Dorfel is 26,690 feet high. These 
mountains are much higher than the mountains on our 
Earth compared with the size of the Earth and the same 
of the Moon. 

The highest mountain peak on the Earth is Mt. Everest, 
29,100 feet. 

The crater Copernicus on the moon is over 40 miles 
across and from the top of the wall to the bottom of the 
crater is 11,300 feet. The shadow of the wall soon after 
sunrise at Copernicus can plainly be seen on the floor of 
the crater, and the ragged shadow peaks running far out 
into the crater show how ragged the wall of the crater is 
at the top. 

The largest crater on the Earth, Eilanea, in Hawaii, 
one of the Sandwich Islands, which is 1,000 feet deep, 3£ 



Astronomy. 39 

miles long, and 2i miles wide, would not be noticed by 
the side of Capernicus. 

There are also 425 rilles, or trencher, with raised sides 
more or less steep, on the Moon which add much to the 
picture. The Walled Plains, as these curious markings 
are called are supposed to have been caused by a bursting 
up of the crust of the Moon, from some internal force. 

In a large telescope the Moon is one of the grandest 
objects in space, owing to its nearness. The line be- 
tween the day and night, or Terminator, as this line is 
called, is not straight as it looks to the naked eye, but 
ragged. The mountain peaks are lighted up by the Sun, 
while the low plains and depressions are in the shade, 
making here a brighter, there a darker spot, and the 
shadow of the mountains far out toward the sun fall 
back toward this line; by these long shadows, the height 
of the mountains, and depth of the depressions are meas- 
ured. After taking one good look at our moon in this 
way we could not help but see that it is round and has 
mountains and valleys like our Earth. 

Looking on page 18, we see that the Moon was formed 
by falling bodies. We see too that the Earth was made 
hot by these bodies falling upon it through its atmos- 
phere, knowing that the Earth has an atmosphere 45 
miles deep, and also knowing that a body will fall 16J 
feet in one second on the Earth, while it would fall only 
about 2J feet at the Moon. Also we know that the Moon 
has no atmosphere to heat matter that would fall upon 
it. We know though that the stoppage on matter in any 
direction will cause heat. 

Now let us sum up the above and we will find that the 
Moon was not a molten sphere like the Earth when it 



40 Elements op 

was formed. That is, it was not as hot as the Earth. 
We have proof for this. The Sun is hotter than the 
Earth while all the planets are cold, also the Nebula of 
which the Moon was formed was a small thing. 

Putting these facts together we may suppose that the 
Moon is aiarge body formed from small bodies, loosely 
thrown together which were hot enough at first to melt 
part of its matter causing it to settle down in places and 
leave deep depressions, while the highest peaks which did 
not melt are extremely ragged. 



ECLIPSES. 

Eclipse of the Moon. — One-half of the Moon's journey 
about the Earth is performed above the plane of the 
ecliptic and the other half below it. Therefore, twice in 
each revolution, the Moon is on the Ecliptic. When at 
these points it is in what is called a node. If the Moon 
when in either node, happens to be in a line with the 
Earth and Sun, we have either an eclipse of the Sun or 
Moon. The Earth, Moon and Sun can never be in line 
only at full or new Moon; therefore an eclipse cannot 
occur only at these times. Now if the Moon, revolved 
about the Earth exactly in the ecliptic we would have an 
eclipse of the Moon at every full Moon, and an eclipse of 
the Sun at every New Moon, but the Moon is just as apt 
to be in a node at her quadrature as at full or new, if this 
happens the Moon will be five degrees above or below the 
ecliptic at full and new Moon, and then if new her shadow 
will pass either below the south pole, if she is south of 
the ecliptic, or above the north pole if north of it, and 



Astronomy. 41 

we would hare no eclipse of the Sun. If she is full at 
this time the Earth's shadow will pass north of her if she 
is south of the ecliptic, or south of her if she is north of 
it, and then we will have no eclipse of the Moon, but it 
so happens that in a period of 18 years, 11 days, 7 hours, 
40 minutes and 38 seconds (or if five leap years occur in 
the period, 10 days must be counted instead of 11) the 
node is again alike situated. Therefore if the Moon is 
eclipsed at this minute, it will be alike eclipsed at the 
end of 18 years, 11 days, 7 hours, 40 minutes and 38 
seconds, and every other eclipse is a different eclipse. 

By this period, eclipses were predicted hundreds of 
years ago; by it astronomers predict eclipses for hundreds 
of years to come. 

This cycle of eclipses is called the Saros. 

There are two kind of shadows in an eclipse, one is the 
Umbra (Latin, Umbra, shadow) the other the Penumbra 
(Latin, Psene Umbra, almost a shadow). If the Sun was a 
point of light only we would have no penumbra, but the 
Sun is large and if the Moon is so situated that it shuts off 
only half his light to us, then, we would not be in the 
shadow of the Moon, though we only receive half the 
light from the Sun. We would therefore b© in fche 
penumbra. But if the Moon puts out the whole light of 
the Sun we would then be in the umbra or shadow. So 
in like manner if the Earth shut off half the light or less 
or more of the Sun from the Moon, the Moon would be 
in the penumbra; and if all of it, the Moon would be in 
the umbra. 

Total Eclipse of the Moox.— When a total eclipse 
is coming on, as the Moon travels from west to east, we 



42 Elements op 

first see its eastern side slightly dim, then, it is entering 
the penumbra; this is the first contact with the penumbra, 
spoken of in almanacs. At length as she creeps on into 
the Earth's shadow her eastern edge becomes darker and 
darker. Now the circular shape of the Earth's shadow 
can be seen on the Moon (this was one of the causes of 
Columbus believing that he could go round the Earth and 
come back to India. He saw the round Earth's shadow 
on the Moon at this point of an eclipse) as she creeps on 
farther she becomes almost invisible, finally she passes 
through the shadow of the Earth and the eclipse is over. 

Partial Eclipse oe the Moon. — When the Moon is 
very near a node, and not exactly at it, we will have a 
partial eclipse of the Moon, the nearer total or more par- 
tial of the eclipse depending upon the distance the Moon 
is from the node. If the Moon is north of the ecliptic 
her south limb or edge will enter the north edge of the 
Earth's penumbra or umbra; if south of the node, the 
north portion of the moon will be hid. 

Total Eclipse of the Sun. — In a total eclipse of the 
Sun, the shadow of the moon which falls on the earth is 
not large, only averaging about 17,671 square miles, as 
the rotation of the Earth upon her axis, is from west to 
east, notwithstanding the revolution of the Moon about 
the Earth is also from west to east, the shadow of the 
Moon travels eastward across the surface of the Earth 
more slowly. In fact, it is so much so, that it appears 
to sweep across the Earth from east to west with great 
rapidity. The longest time, therefore, that a grand total 
eclipse of the Sun can last at any place is only seven min- 
utes, and it is only visible as total whe v e the centre of the 



Astronomy. 43 

shadow of the moon passes over, all other places is par- 
tial. Hence, in any one place a total eclipse of the Sun 
is very rare. 

More eclipses of the Moon can be seen than of the 
Sun, because when an eclipse, though it may be ever so 
slight, occurs on the Moon, it can be seen by all the in- 
habitants of the Earth on the side toward the moon. 
But an eclipse of the Sun may occur at one place and not 
be seen at another, on the Earth. 

To measure the extent of a partial eclipse, the diameter 
of the Sun or Moon is divided into 12 equal parts called 
digits, and the number of digits that the shadow or body 
covers is taken. 

Annular Eclipse of the Sun. — The moon revolves 
about the Earth in an elliptical orbit having the Earth at 
one of its foci at an average distance of exactly 
237,640 miles, as the Mcon's orbit is elliptical she is 
sometimes nearer to us than at others. The greatest 
distance being 253,263 miles, and least only 221,436; the 
difference is 31,827 miles. When the nearest us she 
appears larger than at other times. This is called perigee 
(Greek, perige. near the Earth) when furthest off she is 
said to be in apogee (Greek, Apo ge, from the Earth). 

Now when the Moon is between us and the Sun and 
is in apogee she of course looks less than th3 Sun; 
because the farther a body is off the less it looks. And 
if she comes exactly between us and the Sun she cannot 
put out all the Sun, therefore a ring of light will appear 
all around the Moon. This is called an Annular Eclipse 
of the Sun. (Lat. Annulus, a ring.) 

A Total Eclipse of the Sun. — It is one of the grand- 



44 Elements of 

est phenomena witnessed by man; a few seconds before 
the commencement of the totality, the stars begin to ap- 
pear, and all around the dark moon is seen a glorious 
halo, composed of white light, this is called the corona; 
the sky grows of a dusky, purple, yellowish, crimson, 
color, which gradually grows darker and darker; the sea 
turns lurid red; all sense of distance is lost; the face of 
man assumes a livid hue; flowers close; fowls hasten to 
roost; birds flutter to the ground, dogs whine, sheep col- 
lect together as if danger was at hand, horses and oxen 
lie down, in fact, the whole animal world seems to be 
frightened out of their usual quiet. 

The nodes make a backward revolution upon the 
Moon's orbit with regard to the Moon in 18 years, 219 
days, nearly. The Moon moving forward in her orbit 
meets the same node again before she arrives at the same 
position with regard to the Sun, one period being 29 
days, 12 hours and 44 minutes, called the Synodical 
Revolution of the Moon; the other 27 days, 5 hours and 6 
minutes called the Nodical Revolution. The node is in 
the same position in regard to the Earth and Sun, having 
a period of 346 days, 14 hours, and 52 minutes. Tliis is 
called a Synodic Revolution of the Node. This is why we 
have a circle of eclipses in 18 years, etc., or in 223 
synodic revolutions of the Moon. 

Number op Eclipses —In the period of 18 years, 11 
days, 7 hours, 40 minutes and 38 seconds, there are 70 
different eclipses, 41 of the Sun, and 29 of the moon. 
The greatest number that can occur in a year is 7, the 
least 2; in the 7 five of them may be solar while two are 
lunar; but in the two, both must be solar. There can 



Astronomy. 45 

never be but three lunar eclipses in one year, or there 
ma} r be none at all. 

There are 12 more eclipses of the Sun in the Saros, 
than of the Moon, but we can see more eclipses of the 
Moon than of the Sun at any one place. 

Earth Shine. — If we will notice the appearance of 
the Moon just before and after the new, we will see that 
the Moon is not composed of a bright ring of light only, 
but is still a round body the same as she was when full. A 
bright ring is seen on the side next to the Sun. If before 
the new, the convexed side of this ring is turned toward 
the east where the Sun is soon to rise. If after the new, 
it is turned to the west where the Sun has just set. This 
is called the Crescent Moon. The Moon's day side is at 
this time turned away from the Earth because the Moon 
is nearly between the Earth and Sun, and it being a 
round ball, the Sun can only light up one side and we 
only see a little of the lit up side, while most of the night 
side of the Moon is turned toward the Earth. Now it is 
evident that the day side of the Earth is turned toward 
the Moon because the Earth is on the opposite side of 
the Moon from the Sun. The Earth is in reality full, to 
the Moon. Then, we might imagine that the day side of 
the Earth would shine on the night side of the Moon; 
the same as the day side of the Moon will shine on the 
night side of the Earth when the Moon is full. This is 
really found to be the case, and when we see the night 
side of the Moon faintly lighted up it is called the Earth 
' Shine. 

So the Moon has Earth shine the same as the Earth 
has Moon shine, but there is one striking difference: the 
Earth is so much larger than the Moon that it would ap- 



46 Elements of 

pear 13 times as large to an observer on the Moon as the 
Moon does to us. Then, of course the Earth shine on the 
Moon is 13 times as great as Moon shine on the Earth. 

The Earth is 49 times as large as the Moon and 80 
times as heavy. 

The Earth would have just the same phases to an ob- 
server on the Moon as the Moon has to us^ only she 
would appear larger than the Moon does to us, and also, 
dark spots would mark the water surface, while bright 
ones would mark the land; and changable dark spots 
would mark clouds in the atmosphere. Bright spots sur- 
rounding the poles would mark the snow and ice there, 
and these could be seen to rapidly decrease in the 
summer of one hemisphere and increase in size in the 
winter. 

The Ecliptic. — The Ecliptic got its name from eclipse 
because when the Sun or Moon was eclipsed it was al- 
ways in this circle. 

The Earth in her journey around the Sun in a year 
does not go up or down, that is, north or south of this 
line, but straight on. We may imagine the Earth and 
Sun to be half immersed in an exact level ocean and the 
Earth floating around the Sun in a year, then she does 
not go up or down, but floats straight forward. This is 
called the plane of the Ecliptic. When a star is Korth of 
this line, it is said to be above the plane of the Ecliptic, 
so and so many degrees, or south of it, below the plane 
of the Ecliptic. The plane of the Ecliptic is always used 
by astronomers the same as we say so and so high above 
the level of the sea, or below it as the case may be. 

Now the Earth in her orbit, (which exactly corres- 



Astronomy. 47 

ponds with the ecliptic), her axis do not point exactly 
straight across the Ecliptic, but they cross it at an angle 
of 23 degrees, 27 minutes, 2i seconds. Now as the 
Earth's axis always point exactly in the same direction, 
in regard to the heavens we can easily see why we have 
winter and summer. When the Earth is at the vernal 
equinox her axis are inclined as we just stated, but the 
Sun is on the equator at this time and as the Earth is a 
round ball, the Sun can only light up one half of it at a 
time, the other half is in its own shadow called the 
night. Therefore the Sun shines on the Earth from pole 
to pole, but as the Earth moves on in her orbit, her 
north pole comes more and more into the light till the 
summer solstice is reached, now the Sun shines all around 
the north pole, but the south pole is in the night, so in 
like manner the north pole is in the day, and in spite of 
the Earth's rotation upon her axis, her north pole can- 
not get out of the light of the Sun. She moves on 
around the Sun and the north pole comes more and more 
into the night, the south pole more and more into the 
day, till she reaches her autumnal equinox and again the 
Sun is on the equator and is shining on the Earth from 
pole to pole. Now the Earth has made half her revolu- 
' tion around the Sun, and we have had our summer and 
south of the equator they have had their winter. She 
moves on in her orbit and the north pole comes more 
and more into the night, the south pole more and more 
into the day till the winter solstice is reached (meaning 
Sun stand still). Now the Earth is exactly half around 
the Sun from where she was at the summer solstice, and 
the north pole is in the night and the south pole is in 
the day and in spite of her rotation upon her axis her 



48 Elements of 

north pole cannot get out of the night, nor her south 
pole out of the day. She moves on and the north pole 
comes more and more into the light of the Sun and the 
south pole more and more into the night, till the vernal 
equinox is reached and she is again lit up from pole to 
pole. Now she has made a complete revolution about 
the Sun and north of the equator, we have had winter 
and summer, and south of it they have had winter and 
summer, but we have our summer when they have their 
winter, and they have their summer when we have our 
winter. 

During this time the Earth has turned on her axis 
364i times, her journey around the Sun has made one 
rotation making it 365J times, around her axis or that 
many days. 

So we see that the plane of the Ecliptic or Earth's 
orbit is inclined to the equator or Earth's axis at an 
angle of 23^ degrees. Therefore, as the Earth turns on 
her axis we get day and night; as she goes round the Sun 
we get summer and winter. If the Ecliptic was at right 
angles to the equator the Sun would shine exactly on 
each pole in a year. But it is inclined only 23J degrees 
in place of 90 degrees. 

Revolution op the Earth and Moon About the 
Sun. — The Moon is an independent planet of the Sun, 
and not of the Earth. Yet she is chained to the Earth 
by the law of gravitation so firmly that she cannot leave 
her, and as she revolves about the Earth at a velocity of 
about 2,300 miles per hour, she has a centrifugal force 
away from the Earth sufficient to keep her from falling 
upon the Earth. 

The motions of the two planets are as follows : 



Astronomy. 4& 

The principle motion of the Moon is her great journey 
around the Sun accomplished in one year at an average 
rate of about 60,000 miles an hour (a very little more). 
This velocity gives her a centrifugal force (away from the 
Sun) sufficient to keep her at her present distance from 
the Sun. If the Earth were to be annihilated now the 
Moon would go on at very nearly the same rate and in 
about the same path as now. The Earth only slightly 
disturbs the Moon's motion a little. Sometimes retard- 
ing, sometimes hurrying her forward a little. 

At the first quarter of the Moon, the Earth and Moon 
are independently going around the Sun. The Earth, 
however, pulls back on the Moon by the attraction of 
gravity and slightly checks her speed, (at this point, 
both are kept from falling into the Sun by their own 
centrifugal force, generated independently of each other 
by their great velocity in going around the Sun). As 
soon as the Moon's velocity is checked, her centrifugal 
force (away from the Sun) is, of course, diminished, and 
she shows it by falling a little toward the Sun. (Because 
the Sun attracts her and were it not for her forward 
-revolution around the Sun, which gives her her centri- 
fugal force away from the Sun, she would fall into the 
Sun). In a week the Earth and Moon have passed 
through 1-52 of their orbit about the Sun. In that dis- 
tance the Moon has gradually retarded and fallen toward 
the Sun, 238,000 miles. Meantime the Earth has been 
gaining velocity, because tlfe Moon has attracted her 
forward. Her speed being increased, her centri- 
fugal force (away from the Sun) has also increased and 
her centre has risen 3,000 miles above her common orbit. 
The Moon is now in conjunction, and the Earth is going 



50 Elements op 

2,300 miles an hour faster, (around the sun), than the 
Moon. She will soon pass the Moon, and the instant 
she does so, her attraction begins to help the Moon in 
her eastward journey. (The same as the end of a spoke 
in the wheel of a carriage, as soon as it touches the 
ground and the hub passes it, it at once begins to rise 
higher from the ground). She feels the impulse, her 
velocity is increased, her centrifugal force (away from 
the sun) grows stronger and of course she rises to a 
greater distance from him. In seven days more the two 
bodies move through 1-52 of their orbit and reach the 
first quarter of the Moon. The Moon's velocity is again 
the same as that of the Earth, and is gaining. Her distance 
(from the Sun) is also the same a&that of the earth,and now 
her increasing velocity and consequent centrifugal force, 
makes her rise completely above the common orbit, till 
in another week or at full Moon she is 238,000 miles 
farther from the Sun than at first quarter and is moving 
2,300 miles an hour (forward around the sun) faster 
than the Earth. The Earth has been pulled back and 
checked a little by the attraction of the Moon and has, 
therefore, fallen 3.000 miles toward the Sun. Now the 
Moon passes the Earth and the moment she does, the 
Earth's attraction slightly checks her speed and she 
begins to fall Sunward till in another week the two 
bodies have gone through 1-52 more of their orbit and 
the Moon has fallen 238,000 miles toward the Sun and is 
again at first quarter — the place where we started to trace 
her. During this time the two bodies have passed 
through nearly 1-13 of their orbit around the Sun. If 
both bodies were the same size and same density their 
motion up and down from the Sun would be exactly the 



ASTKONOMY. 51 

same, but as the Earth is 49 times as large as the Moon 
and 80 times as heavy, the Earth's up and down motion 
is but 1-80 that of the Moon. 

Seen from the Earth this looks exactly like a revolution 
of the Moon about the Earth and all the effects are the 
same as if it were really so, but looked at as God sees it, 
the Moon's path is a slight wavering line up and down 
across the Earth's orbit and always concave to the Sun, 
while the Earth's orbit is also a more slightly wavering 
line, up and down, in regard to the Sun. 

The common mean distance of the two bodies from the 
Sun is 91,430,000 miles, but as they move around that 
body in an elliptical orbit with the Sun at one of its foci, 
their distance from him is not always the same. Their 
greatest distance is 92,965,000 and least 89 ,895,000 miles. 
The mean distance of the Moon from the Earth is but 
237,640 miles, a very much less difference of distance. 

The Moon makes a complete revolution about the 
Earth in regard to a fixed star, in 27 days, 7 hours and 
43 minutes 11£ seconds, but as both Earth and Moon are 
moving around the Sun at the same time and pass 
through 1-13 nearly of their orbit in that time the Moon 
will not reach the point exactly between the Earth and 
Sun, (having the Sun for a starting point) till she has 
moved forward about the Earth a little more, making 
her period from one new Moon to the next 29 days, 12 
hours and 44 minutes. The former is called the Sidereal 
Revolution, and the latter the Sy nodical Revolution of the 
Moon, 

The Sun appears to revolve eastward around the earth 
in a year, but that is not really the case. The Earth 
and Moon revolve eastward around the Sun in a year. 



52 Elements of 

Equator and Ecliptic. — There are two kinds of 
Equators used in explaining astronom}\ 1st, the Terres- 
trial Equator; 2d, the Celestial Equator. The Terrestrial 
Equator is that great circle which is equally distant from 
the two poles. It cuts or divides the Earth into two 
equal parts, and is at all places ninety degrees from the 
poles or end of the imaginary axis. (See Ecliptic.) As 
the stars are so far off, we may imagine the centre of the 
celestial sphere to lie at the centre of the Earth, and we 
may imagine it to be as large or as small as we please. 
The points at which the Earth's axis would pierce this 
sphere if extended at each end, we call the Celestial 
Poles. The great circle which lies in the same plane as 
the Terrestrial Equator is called the Celestial Equator or 
Equinoctial. The Celestial sphere is the vault of the 
heavens in which all the stars and sun seem to be fixed. 
It extends clear around the centre of the Earth at all 
points and is in reality the sky, which is nothing but as 
far as the eye can see into the blue ether in space. The 
Stars, the Sun, one among the number, are not fixed in 
this vault at equal distance from us, but at various dis- 
tances, and varying greatly in size. Our Sun is a small 
star compared with some of the others. It looks large 
simply because it is the nearest star to us, save some of 
the planets, which are stars that do not shine of their 
own light like the Sun and fixed stars, but shine because 
they are cold black bodies and reflect to us the light they 
receive from the Sun. Therefore their light is Sunshine 
at second hand like that of the Moon. 

The Celestial Equator crosses the Ecliptic at an angle 
of 23i degrees. The points where they cross are called 
the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes. The points in the 



Astronomy. 53 

Ecliptic or Earth's orbit, where the Celestial Equator is 
the greatest distance from the Ecliptic is called the sum- 
mer and winter Sol stices, respectively. 

The Earth turns round its imaginary axis in 24 hours 
from west to east, and of course it rotates in the plane of 
the Equator. So we see that if it moved round the Sun 
in the Celestial Equator, the day and night would always 
be 12 hours. But that is not the case. It moves along 
the Ecliptic and then, of course when it is at the summer 
Sol stice its north pole is pointing toward the Sun at an 
angle of 23i degrees and the south pole is pointing 
away from the Sun at the same angle. This is the time 
of the northern summer and southern winter. It moves 
on and in three months it is at the Equinox and then, of 
course, the Sun shines on the Earth from pole to pole 
and the day and night are of equal length. It moves on 
and in three months more it reaches the opposite side of 
the Sun from where it was at the northern summer and 
then it is at the winter Solstice and the south pole is 
pointing toward the Sun at an angle of 23J degrees and 
the north pole is pointing away from it at the same angle 
and we have the northern winter and south of the 
Equator they have summer. Now we can see why we 
get winter and summer. It is because the Earth does 
not move in her orbit in the same direction that she 
rotates upon her axis but crosses it at an angle of 23J de- 
grees, then of course, when the Earth is at its greatest 
distance from the Celestial Equator one or the other of 
her poles is pointing toward the Sun; which one it will 
be depends on whether it is the summer or winter Sol- 
stice that is meant. 
The Earth's axis is an imaginary line drawn through 



54 Elements op 

the centre of the Earth and terminating at the surface 
at each pole. The poles are the ends of this imaginary 
line. 

The Earth turns round this imaginary line in 23 hours, 
56 minutes and 4 seconds. The Earth's axis always 
point in the same direction in regard to the heavens. 

The Zodiac. — The Zodiac is a belt of the Heavens ex- 
tending nine degrees on each side of the ecliptic. In this 
belt the Sun and all the major planets appear to perform 
their annual revolution about the Earth. 

Sigks of the Zodiac. — The Zodiac is divided into 12 
equal parts called Signs. As there is always 360 degrees 
in a circle, whether large or small, each of these signs 
would be just 30 degrees. The names of the signs are: 
Aries, Taurus, and Gemini, are the spring signs; Cancer 
Leo, and Virgo, are summer signs; Libra, Scorpio, and 
Sagittarius, are the Autumn signs, and Capricorn, 
Equarius and Pisces, are the winter signs. 

The Sun is in Aries at the vernal or spring equinox and 
as he appears to move eastward yearly (which is simply 
due to the Earth revolving about the Sun) he passes 
through that sign in a little more than 30 days and then 
into Taurus and out of it into all the rest in rotation, till 
he is back to the starting point. Thus we see that the 
Sun not only appears to revolve about the Earth in a day 
from east to west, but he also appears to revolve about 
the Earth in a year from west to east. The former is 
due to the rotation of the Earth upon her axis in 24 
hours, and the latter is due to the revolution of the Earth 
about the Sun in a year. 

The Zodiac is most always represented in Almanacs as 



Astronomy. 55 

a man. When the Moon is in Aries, it is said to be in 
the head, and in Taurus, the neck, and so on down to 
the feet (Pisces) This is simply the Moon, in her east- 
ward journey about the Earth in a month, passing 
through each sign until she comes back to the head or 
Aries. As the sign is in the man, the Moon is in the 
same sign in the Zodiac at that time. 

Some people think that if they plant seed when the 
sign is at the right place the plants will grow off well. 
I cannot see how the Moon in different places in the 
Zodiac can have anything to do with plants, or any of 
the simple notions that some have of it. There are also 
constellations in the Zodiac that have the same name as 
the signs, but the signs and constellations do not exactly 
agree, and the signs must not be mixed up with them in 
the mind. 

It is probably better to throw the signs into rhyme, 
thus: 

Aries and Taurus are first on time, 
Next Gemini, Cancer and the Lion; 
Virgo is next to come along, 
While Libra weighs her lovely song; 
The Scorpion is next one in the row, 
While Sagittarius follows as they go ; 
Capricornus (the goat) walks on so apt, 
Aquarius and Pisces fill up the gap ; 
So here they go from west to east, 
Their line of march will never cease. 

Th£ Solar System. — There are a variety of little 
bodies nestled around our Sun. These and the Sun form 
what is called the Solar System, We find planets (Greek, 
Planet, a Wanderer) of which our Earth is one. These 
differ in size and placed as by hand at distances varying 
according to certain laws. If we write down, 0, 3, 6, 12, 
24, 48, 96, 192, 384, and add 4 to each, we get: 4, 7, 10, 



56 Elements of 

16, 28, 52, 100, 196, 388, and then multiply each term 
by 9 we get the distance of the planet corresponding with 
the term, in millions of miles from the Sun, very nearly. 
This is called Bodes Law. It will be seen that Jupiter 
does not correspond with the next term to Mars, or 16, 
but she does correspond with the next term, 28, and this 
being a fact, Kepler boldly placed an undiscovered planet 
in the wide gap between Mars and Jupiter which led to 
the organization of a society of astronomers to discover 
the planet, which consisted of 24 members, each member 
had a 24th part of the Zodiac confided to him, and 
curiously enough on the first day of the present century 
a planet was discovered and called Ceres which filled up 
the gap, and up to the present time nearly 200 of these 
little bodies have been discovered which are called 
Asteroids or minor planets. 

There is also a ring of small planets visible to us, 
called the Zodiacal light, and two other rings of planetary 
dust which cause the November and April showers of 
meteors which appear in certain years. 

There is another class of planets in our system called 
comets (Greek, Komet, long-haired). They are misty 
bodies, though filling a large place in the ocean of space, 
are supposed to weigh only from a few ounces to two or 
three pounds. 

There is yet another class of bodies in space which 
probably have no law except to move from place to place 
as the attraction of the different systems and Suns draw 
them, these are called Meteorits which owing to their 
size and weight resist the action of the air, and fall upon 
the Earth. They are divided into three classes: Aerolites, 
or meteoric stones; Aerosiderites, or moteoric iron; and 



Astronomy. 57 

Aerosiderolites which are different kinds of meteoric 
dust. The smallest of these are the shooting stars which 
can be seen on any clear night, called meteors, fire balls, 
or shooting stars. 

Men and cattle have been killed by meteorits which 
fall upon the earth. Sometimes meteorits fall that weigh 
hundreds of pounds and go five or six feet into the 
ground where they strike. They have been known to 
burst in the air and scatter over several square miles of 
era. Such is our system; the greatest wonder possible. 

The names of the eight large planets are: Mercury, 
Venus, Earth, Mars (asteroids), Jupiter, Saturn, Urenus 
and Neptune. 

Mercury was the messenger of the Gods. Hence, her 
sign, the outline of his caduceus, or rod, which was 
entwined by two serpents, and had a pair of wings. 
Venus, the God of beauty, had a round looking glass, for 
her sign, which had a handle. Mars, the God of war had 
a round shield surmounted by a spear-head. Jupiter has 
a capital Z for his sign, the initial of Jupiter's Greek 
name, Zeus. Saturn, the God of time has a scycle for 
her sign, with which she mows down the human race. 
Urenus has, for her sign, a planetprojecting out from the 
cross bar of a capital B, the initial of Herschel's name, 
its discoverer. Neptune has a trident for her sign, prob- 
ably denoting Adams, Le Verrier and Dr. Galle, its dis- 
covers. 

History of the Planets. — Mercury, Venus, Mars, 
Jupiter, and Saturn, were known to the first inhabitants 
of the Earth and given the name of planets, (wanderers), 
which are traveling stars. Sir William .Herschel dis- 
covered Urenus in 1781. Neptune was first discovered 



58 Elements of 

by Dr. Galle in 1846. The discovery of this planet was 
one of the most striking curiosities in the history of 
Astronomy. Every body in space attracts every other 
body, and this is noticed in the motion of the planets as 
they move in their orbit. If a planet is moving toward 
another it moves faster than usual, and when moving* 
away from it, it moves slower. So after Urenus had been 
discovered some time it was noticed that she had a 
peculiar motion not accounted for by the known causes. 
It was believed, therefore, that there was another planet 
further from the Sun than Urenus, and Adams and 
Le Yerrier went about to find it, both independently, and 
separately, and arrived at a remarkable agreement, the 
portion of the heavens where each said they believed the 
planet then to be not being a degree apart. Le Verier's 
calculations came last, and by the big star map, and 
huge telescope at Berlin, the planet was discovered on 
the same evening that they received Le Verier's instruc- 
tions. 

The first of the Asteroids (Greek, a star form) Ceres 
was discovered by the Sicilian astronomer, Piazzi, in 
1801. Pallas was added in 1802; Juno, in 1804; Vesta, 
in 1807. The rest have been discovered in late years, 
and it is believed that there are more of these yet to be 
discovered. Some of the Asteroids are not over 50 miles 
in diameter. Their attraction is, therefore, so small, 
that a large man would weigh but a few pounds on one 
of them. He would jump and run with all ease. — The 
less a body is, the less is its attraction. — So, a weight 
attracts the Earth and the Earth attracts the weight, and 
if the Earth were no larger and denser than the weight 
their attraction would be the same. 



Astronomy. 59 

There may be a small planet between Mercury and the 
Sun. Several astronomers claim that they have seen 
something there of a planetar}^ nature and went so far as 
to name it Vulcan, but it is not yet proven. 

Moons. — The Earth is not the only planet that is 
accompanied by a Moon, but there are five of the others 
that have moons which travel round them called Satel- 
lites. The Earth has one Moon; Mars, two; Jupiter, 
four; Saturn, eight; Urenus, four, and Neptune, one. 
Saturn is also surrounded by three great rings called the 
Bings of Saturn. 

There is one curiosity in the Moons of Mars. One of 
these Satellites rises in the west and sets in the east, 
while the other rises in the east and sets in the west. 
The- cause of this is: one of the Moons revolves round 
the planet in less time than the planet rotates upon her 
own axis. The other Moon is above the horizon about 
two days and finally sets in the west. The former re- 
volves about the planet in about 1% hours, the latter in 
, about 30 hours. The planet rotates m 24 hours, 37 min- 
utes, and 23 seconds. 

The Sun. — The Sun is the nearest fixed star to us. It 
gives light and heat to all the planets. The Sun is 
denoted by the following sign : Q or ^ 

The Sun is a perfect sphere. This is known from the 
fact, that the Sun rotates on his axis, and were it not a 
sphere it would not always appear round as we see his 
disk projected on the sky. 

The Sun appears larger about January the first than 
at any other time because the Earth is then in perihelion 
and, therefore, we are about three million miles nearer 
the Sun than we are July the first, at which time the 



60 Elements of 

Earth is in aphelion. The difference in size is about like 
107 to 94. 

The Sun is so much brighter than the fixed stars that 
it is a difficult}" at first to look at it in any way unless 
through smoked glass or a telescope with proper ap- 
pliances. Without this it is dangerous to look at the 
Sun. Men have lost their eyesight by so doing. 

The Sun is about two hundred thousand times as near 
to us as the nearest fixed star, Alpha Centuri. If it were 
as far off it would look like a star of the third magnitude 
or just visible to the naked eye at a mean distance of the 
first magnitude stars. 

The Sun is not one of the largest stars. The parallax 
shows the Sun to be 91,393,000 from the Earth, at his 
mean distance. Now since we know the distance we 
can readily tell how many miles he is in diameter; for as 
there are always 360 degrees in a circle, large or small, 
we have only to take a section of this circle that the Sun 
fills and see how many miles long the section would be. 
This will give the distance through the Sun. Thus, we 
find that the Sun is 852,584 miles in diameter. 

The volume of the Sun is over 1,245,000 times as great 
as that of the Earth. That is, the bulk of the Sun is 
1,245,000 times as great as that of the Earth, but his 
density is but one-fourth as great, that is as much as to 
say that a cubic foot of the Earth's matter would weigh 
down four cubic feet of the Sun's. 

The Sun like every other heavenly body rotates on his 
axis, this, like in all other cases, was found by noticing 
how long it takes a spot to go from one side of the Sun's 
disk to the other and then multiply this by two. But, 
strange to say, the Sun's rotation is not the same at any 



Astronomy. 61 

two places. At the equator of the Sun he rotates in 
about 25 days, at a place half way from the Equator to 
the poles he rotates in about 28 days. This is due to the 
fact that the Photosphere is a mass of gasious matter 
diffused in his atmosphere while below this, no doubt, is 
a harder kernel which rotates in still less time than a 
spot at the equator, and that this body is probably ro- 
tating at all places the same, but as the rotary velocity 
of this body is greater, or a body is carried farther east- 
ward at the equator than at the other places, it carries 
the liquid Photosphere forward farther there, than at any 
other place. 

The Sun's equator is inclined to the ecliptic at an 
angle of about 82 degrees. 

Viewed through the telescope, the Sun is marked here 
and there with black spots, besides these spots we see 
ridges of Facula which are the brightest parts of the 
Sun, (the meaning of the word Facula is, torches) again 
we see coarsely mottled patches here and there. 

The darkest part of the spot is the nucleus surrounding 
the nucleus in the umbra and outside of this is the 
penumbra. 

The smallest telescope will reveal the spots to us, 
though in a less degree than a large one. Besides the 
spots and other markings in the Photosphere we see, 
when the Sun is totally eclipsed, red flames and red 
prominces floating high in his atmosphere, these are 
probably streamers of electricity rising from the Sun. 

Elements in the Sun. — Besides steam, we have 
glowing gases of the following substances which are 
burning in the Sun : Sodium, Iron, Magnesium, Berium, 



62 Elements of 

Copper, Zinc, Calcium, Chromium, Nickle, etc. These 
glowing vapors combined with electricity causes the light 
and heat. We observe electric light in a volcanic eruption 
on the Earth in many cases, caused by the friction of 
particles of steam against the stony substances with 
which they are mingled. Then, why would not the 
steam in the Sun's photosphere mingled with these 
vapors of iron and other substances produce the same 
phenomena? It would : The Sun is so bright that we 
may place the brightest light known to man, save elec- 
tric light, between us and him and it will appear as a 
black spot on the Sun. The Earth is so far from the 
Sun that his light and heat is but faintly felt, com- 
paratively. In fact, we only grasp one-two-billionth 
part of them. That is as much as to say that the Sun's 
light and heat are sufficient to uphold two billion worlds 
like ours if they were placed so as to receive every bit of 
them. 

There is something coming from the Sun besides light 
and heat, and to this we owe the fact that the Earth is 
clad with vegetation and working alive with living ani- 
mals. Under the tropics, where the Sun is always present 
in his might, vegetation is greatest, and north and south 
of this we have a new birth of living plants every spring. 
There comes chemical force, from the Sun, "which 
separates carbon from oxygon, and turns the gas, which, 
were it to accumulate, would kill the life of animals, into 
the life of plants." The animal and vegetable world is 
thus built up by the Sun. 

No work could be done without the Sun, nothing could 
live without it, and, therefore, we owe the Sun for the 



Astronomy. 62 

crust of the Earth, which it has taken thousands and 
thousands of years to build up. 

The influence of Sunlight on all organic life is remark- 
able. It is a powerful vital stimulent, and increases the 
tone and activity of all the vital functions. Both plants 
and animals would die without sunlight. This is why 
children brought up in dark or bad ventilated houses, 
almost destitute of fresh air and sunlight, are always pale 
and sickly. On the other hand, those that are reared in 
the country are hardy and rugged. 

Some mothers are so afraid, lest a beam of sunlight 
should fall upon one of their little ones and spoil their 
complexions, that they keep them in dark houses, not 
knowing, it seems, that they are spoiling their health by 
so doing. Children need sunlight and fresh air as much 
as flowers and plants. Sometimes adults who are half 
the time ill are made so and kept so by being too careful 
lest a ray of sunlight or a fresh draught of air should 
strike them. 

The Planets. — Mercury is the nearest planet to the 
Sun. Under favorable circumstances Mercury may be 
seen occasionally, though only a few minutes before sun- 
rise or after sunset, as the ease may be. 

She is so near the Sun, only 35,393,000 miles from him, 
and revolving around the Sun at this small distance, 
comparatively, in 87 days, 23 hours and 15 minutes, it is 
only occasionally that we can get a glimpse of her. She 
is never more than 29 degrees east or west of the Sun, and 
at times she rises and sets with him, being either beyond 
or between us and the Sun. To the naked eye Mercury 
looks like a star of the third magnitude and twinkles 
like the fixed stars. She is the only planet that twinkles. 



64 Elements op 

In a large telescope Mercury exhibits the same phases 
as those of the Moon. When beyond the Sun, she 
appears full, but smaller, owing to the distance across 
her orbit. When she is in her quadratures she appears 
like the Moon at first quarter. This is the time we can 
see her with the naked eye. But when she is between us 
and the Sun she has a crescent phase, owing to her day 
side being turned away from us, and we only see a little 
of the lit up side. When she is east of the Sun, (or in 
the evening) her west limb is lit up, but when she passes 
the Sun, her eastern edge can begin to be seen. When 
she is between us and the sun, her apparent diameter is 
2-J- times as great as it is when she is beyond the Sun. 
These vary a little owing to the great elongation of her 
orbit. Mercury is very much nearer the Sun at perihel- 
ion than she is at apihelion. 

The heat and light of the Sun at Mercury is 7 times as 
great as that on the Earth. 

Mercury is so near the Sun, and, therefore, so much in 
his light, it is almost impossible to get an accurate 
knowledge of her surface, though enough has been seen 
of her surface to indicate that she has au atmosphere and 
it is believed that mountains are seen on her. 

She is the densest planet in our system, having a 
specific gravity i greater than that of the Earth. Mer- 
cury rotates on her axis in 24 hours, 5| minutes. Her 
axis are believed to be inclined to the plane of the 
ecliptic a little more than that of the Earth, if this be so, 
she has a summer of 44 of our days long, and a winter 
of the same length. 

Mercury is 2,962 miles in diameter aud has a volume 



Astronomy. 65 

mass and density, (if we represent the Earth's at 100) of 
5, 7 and 124, respectively. 

Venus. — Venus is the next planet to Mercury. Her 
mean distance from the Sun is 66,131,000 miles. On 
account of her being the nearest heavenly body to the 
Earth, except the Moon, she appears brighter and more 
beautiful than any of the other planets. So bright is she 
at times that she can cast a perceptible shadow. Seen 
through the telescope she has phases similar to those of 
Mercury and the Moon. When she is between the Earth 
and Sun, her apparent diameter is 6i times as great as 
when she is on the opposite side of the Sun from the 
Earth, owing to the distance across her orbit. Venus is 
always below the horizon at midnight and revolves about 
the Sun in 224,7007 days, and as her period of revolution 
around the sun is less than that of the Earth (365| days) 
she must pass between the Earth and Sun, and pass 
behind rhe Sun, while at other times she is east or west 
of the Sun. When she is east of him she is evening star, 
when west of him, she is morning star, when she is at 
her greatest eastern or western elongation she is 47 de- 
grees above the horizon at sun set or sun rise, (the 
Earth's orbit is 16 J degrees above Venus at this point). 
Venus is about the same as the Earth in every respect 
except, she has no moon. Her diameter is 7,510 miles. 
(The Earth's diameter is 7,926 miles.) Her volume mass 
and density is 85, 79 and 92 respectively (reckoning the 
Earth's at 100), Venus turns on her axis in 23 hours, 
16 minutes, and 19 seconds. The heat and light of the 
Sun at Venus is about twice as great as ours. Her 
atmosphere is about the same as ours except radiation of 
heat, owing to the greater heat of the Sun, causes her 



66 Elements of 

atmosphere to appear more cloudy than ours, spots have 
been seen on her surface which indicate lofty mountains. 
Venus' axis are inclined to the plane of her ecliptic at an 
angle of 49 degrees and 58 minutes, that would make a 
greater difference in her winter and summer than the 
same on the Earth. If the Earth's axis were inclined to 
that extent her northern tropic would be a little north 
of the mouth of the St. Lawrence river, and the southern 
near Cape Horn. 

If Venus orbit lay exactly in the same plane as that of 
the Earth. We would have a transit of Venus every 
time Venus comes between the Earth and Sun, but this 
is not the case; she crosses the Earth's orbit twice in 
every revolution about the Sun, and we cannot have a 
transit unless Venus is in a node (or the knot, where 
they cross). Transits of Venus do happen at times, and 
astronomers can predict their re-occurrence. It will be 
more than a hundred years before we have another tran- 
sit of Venus. 

The Eakth. — Next to Venus is the Earth which is 
also a planet and revolves about the Sun in 365J days. 
We know that the surface of the Sun is hot — the outer 
crust of the Earth is cold — all the heat we get comes 
from the Sun, except some is radiated through the com- 
paratively, thin crust from the molten interior of the 
Earth. Astronomy teaches us that all the other planets 
are like the Earth in this respect. They all are opaque 
bodies, having no light in themselves and they all get 
their light and heat from the white hot Sun. Therefore 
the planets like our moon reflect to us the light they re- 
ceive from the sun. 

The Earth is round. If we had no proof of it we could 



Astronomy. 67 

guess it to be round, because both Sun and Moon are 
round. Also the planets rotate on an axis and they 
always appear round. This could not be the case i£ they 
were not really round. In an eclipse of the Moon the 
rounding shape of the Earth's shadow can be seen on the 
Moon. This could not be the case were the Earth not 
round. 

If we watch ships putting out to sea we lose first the 
hull, then the lower sails, last of all the uppermost of the 
mast disappear. This could not be so if the Earth was 
not round, A common error is that level is an exact 
straight plane, and this error lead some to believe that 
the Earth is an extended plane, one part no higher than 
another, comparatively. But science teach us beyond a 
single doubt that the surface of the Earth, and, there- 
fore, level is a curved plane every point of which is at 
equal distance from a point within called the centre. If 
an exact straight edge was placed on water so that the 
middle of the straight edge would just touch the water, 
both ends would not touch; because the ends are farther 
from the centre of the earth, (though ever so slight) 
than the middle. The roundness is called, rotundness of 
the Earth. 

There are hundreds of ways to prove that the Earth is 
round. Sailors have sailed round it. On all sides of us 
we see a circle where the sky seems to come down and 
rest on the surface of the Earth, this is called the Sensible 
Horizon. The higher we are from the level of the sea, 
the larger and larger this circle appears. This would 
not be the case were the Earth not a perfect sphere, or 
nearly so. So we see that it is proven that the Earth is 
round, but this is not all, it rotates on an axis, as a ball 



68 Elements of 

would do, where it thrown into the air with a kind of 
whirling motion. Now let us suppose we throw a ball in 
this way, and in the dark, and then place a light so 
that it would shine on the ball, the light would light up 
one side of the ball at all times but as the ball turned on 
its axis, it would bring every point of its surface to the 
light if it rotated in the same plane, or exactly toward 
the light. But if it rotated at exactly right angles to the 
light the light would shine on one pole, or one end only. 
The Earth is a ball and the Sun is a light, and the above 
illustration will help ns understand their motions. Now 
there is an imaginary line running through the centre of 
the Earth called the axis on which the Earth would 
rotate were it a real iron rod, the ends of this line are 
called the poles, the axis always point in the same direc- 
tion in regard to the heavens. Half way between the 
poles is another imaginary line round the Earth called 
the Equator or Equinoctial. The Earth rotates on her 
axis and turns in the plane of the Equator. The Earth 
goes round the Sun in a year but she does not move in 
the plane of the Equator but crosses this plane at an 
angle of 23 degrees, 27 minutes and 24 seconds of arc. 
This line, (though belonging to the heavens) is called the 
Ecliptic. The ecliptic is the line round the Earth that 
the Sun occupies during the year, (moving nearly one 
degree eastward every day). The equator is the plane in 
which the Earth rotates. So, we see that if the ecliptic 
and equator was both exactly in the same plane we would 
have day and night but would have no winter or summer, 
But the seasons would always be the same, notwithstand- 
ing the Earth would revolve about the Sun in a year. . 
Besides the above imaginary lines we have other 



Astronomy. 69 

imaginary lines called Parallels- The Earth is divided 
up into 90 equal parts from the equator to the poles, 
these are called parallels of latitude. The distance of any 
place from the equator to the poles is called its latitude. 
When north of the equator it is in north latitude. When 
south of it it is in south latitude. No place can have 
more than 90 degrees north or south latitude, because 
the poles are 90 degrees from the equator. A place at 45 
degrees north latitude is exactly half way between the 
equator and the north pole. 

There are still other imaginary lines round the Earth 
called Meridians. These run from north to south and 
pass through each pole. Every place on the Earth has 
its own meridian from east to west, but north or south 
many places have the same meridian. 

These are recorded from Washington or Greenwich. 
They commence at and go on up to 180 degrees east 
and west. If reckoned from Greenwich, this fact must 
be stated; if from Washington, the same. 

A place that has 45 degrees north latitude and 180 de- 
grees west longitude, is situated exactly where these two 
lines cross, and no other place on the globe has the same 
number. Another place with the mark 45 degrees south 
latitude and 180 degrees west longitude is 90 degrees 
from the former, only it is placed exactly south of it. No 
place can have more than 180 degrees east or west longi- 
tude. These parallels of latitude and meridians of longi- 
tude are sub-divided into minutes and seconds, so that 
the situation of every place can be distinctly known by 
the number that is given. 

So, we see that the Earth in its original state had none 



70 Elements of 

of these imaginary lines, but all were given to her by 
man. 

On the earth we find parallels of latitude and meridians 
of longitude laid down. Besides these, the Earth is 
divided up into Zones. There are five of these zones. 
From one tropic to the other, which is 23 degrees, 27 
minutes, and 24 seconds from the equator respectively, 
or 46 degrees, 54 minutes and 48 seconds apart, is called 
the Torrid Zone. From the tropic of Cancer to the 
Arctic circle, which is 23 degrees, 27 minutes, and 24 
seconds from the north pole, is called the North Tem- 
perate Zone. From the Arctic Circle to the pole is 
called the North Frigid Zone. 

From the tropic of Capricorn, which is south of the 
equator, to the Antartic Circle is called the South Tem- 
perate Zone and from the Antarctic Circle to the south 
pole is called the South Frigid Zone. 

It has been found by delicate measurement that the 
Earth is not a perfect sphere, but an oblate spheroid. 
That is, her polar diameter is 26 5-11 miles shorter than 
her equatorial diameter. This is caused by the rotation 
of the Earth upon her axis which gives a slight centri- 
fugal force, and would, were the Earth a perfect sphere, 
cause matter to weigh less at the equator than at the 
poles. 

The Earth and all the planets move round the Sun in 
an elliptical orbit, having the Sun at one of its foci 
(plural of focus). The Earth is, therefore, about 3,000,000 
miles nearer the Sun when in perihelion, which is about 
January the first, than she is when she is in aphelion, or 
July first. The eccentricity of the ellipse described by 



Astronomy. 71 

the Earth is but 1-60, therefore, the orbit, unless drawn 
on a large scale would appear as a circle. 

The velocity of the Earth in her orbit is continually 
varying, moving fastest when the Earth is in perihelion 
or January first, and slowest when in aphelion or July 
first. Its average rate is about 60,000 miles an hour, a 
very little more. 

As the Earth moves, in her orbit, faster January the 
first and slower July first, we have a great difference in 
the northern and southern summers and winters, also 
as the Sun is nearer the Earth January first it is also 
hotter. For these reasons we have the best climate in 
the northern hemisphere; because we have a long cool 
summer and a short warm winter, while south of the 
equator they have a short hot summer and a long cool 
winter. But the aphelion and perihelion points are 
making a slow rotation in regard to the Sun. So the 
time will come, in ages and ages to come, when the Earth 
will be nearest the Sun July first, at that time the best 
climate will be reversed, or south of the equator. 

The days and nights are not equal at any two places 
north of the equator; and they have the same result south 
of it. Now if we take a point 45 degrees north latitude, 
on the longest day in summer the Sun rises nearly north- 
east and at noon it is far south of the zenith, while at 
sunset it is 'in the northwest, so we see that the path of 
the Sun is longer than it would be if the Sun rose at due 
east and set at due west passing through the zenith at 
noon. On the other hand, on the shortest day in winter 
at 45 degrees north latitude the Sun rises nearly south- 
east and passes along not far above the southern horizon 
at noon and sets in the southwest, thus the path of the 



72 Elements of 

Sun, at this time, is very much shorter. As we go north 
of this the effects are greater till we reach the pole where 
the Sun is above the horizon (moving around on it at 
first and then rising higher) for three months and then 
goes back for three months and goes below it for six 
months. The poles, therefore have but one day and 
one night during the year. This is because the north 
pole is, during the summer or June 21st, pointing toward 
the Sun at an angle of 23J degrees. The south pole the 
same on Dec. 21st. At the equator the days and nights 
are always 12 hours respectively, at 30 degrees, 48 min- 
utes north or south latitude, the longest day is 14 hours, 
and the longest night is the same; at 49 degrees, 2 min- 
utes, the longest day is 16 hours; at 58 degrees, 27 min- 
utes, 18 hours; at 63 degrees, 23 minutes, 20 hours; at 66 
degrees, 21 minutes, 23 hours; at 66 degrees, 32 minutes, 
24 hours; at 90 degrees, or the poles, six months. 

Now let us take a point 45 degrees north of the equator 
and let the Sun be at either equinox, now place a piece of 
wood one inch square perpendicular and take another 
piece the same size and point it exactly toward the Sun 
at noon, now cut off the ends of the two sticks so that 
they will exactly fit on a level floor, the perpendicular 
stick will just cover one square inch of the floor, while 
the other will cover two. Thus we see that the heat of 
the Sun is just half as great at this point as it would be 
were it in the zenith, because the Earth absorbs all the 
rays of the Sun that fall upon it at any place, and if a 
beam one inch square falls on one inch square of surface 
the heat is the greatest possible, but if it falls upon two 
square inches it is but half as great. Therefore, the 
amount of heat a country has always depends upon how 



ASTROKOHY. 73 

the rays fall upon it at noon. Though the Isothermal 
lines deviate greatly from straight lines, caused by eleva- 
tions, warm or Gold ocean currents, or constant winds, 
either cold or hot. 

The Atmosphere. — The Atmosphere is about 45 miles 
thick,but it is known that a very rarefied air extends upward 
to the height of 400 or 500 miles. It is like a great ocean 
covering the Earth at every point to a greater or less 
depth. We are like fish at the bottom of this great 
ocean. The lower strata of our Atmosphere are heavily 
charged with vapor that renders life possible. Winds are 
but currents of air moving from place to place. Clouds 
are condensed vapors floating in the atmosphere, their 
height always depending on their density; a heavy cloud 
floats low and a light one high. Fog is but cloud, differ- 
ing from the latter in the variation of their height. 

North of the equator, we have a belt of Trade Winds 
which blow from the northeast; south of it we have a 
similar belt that blow from the southeast. These two 
currents meet at the equator and there they rise. (This 
belt where they rise is called the Belt of Calms,) After 
they rise they go back northeast and southeast forming 
the Anti-Trades. These currents come down to the 
Earth's surface at the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of 
Capricorn forming the calms of Cancer and the calms of 
Capricorn. From this on toward the poles for some dis- 
tance we have the Anti-Trades sweeping along on the 
Earth's surface, from the southwest in the northern 
.hemisphere, and from the northwest in the southern. 
The causes of these winds are due to the difference in the 
heat of the Sun at different places. At the equator this 
heat is the greatest possible, and as the air there becomes 



74 Elements of 

hot it expands and rises, because it becomes lighter, as it 
rises other air must rush in to fill up the partial vacuum. 
It in turn becomes hot and rises and $o on. Now it is 
evident that all the air on the Earth cannot pile up in 
this way at the equator, so they must set off toward the 
poles, forming the Anti-Trades. The direction of these 
winds would be due north and south but for the rotation 
of the Earth upon her axis. Now as the Earth becomes 
smaller and smaller the nearer and nearer we go to the 
poles, from the equator, the atmosphere, likewise, has a 
less velocity eastward at every parallel from the equator 
to the poles. Then as the atmosphere moves from the 
poles toward the equator, it is continually coming to 
places on the Earth which has a greater eastward velocity 
than itself, therefore, the Earth slips from under it, as it 
were, causing the wind to blow from northeast in the 
northern hemisphere, and from the southeast in the 
southern. This causes the atmosphere to gain velocity 
till its velocity and the surfaces of the Earth is the same. 
So as the Anti-Trades set off from the equator toward the 
poles they are continually coming to places which have 
less velocity than themselves therefore they slip eastward 
over the Earth. If we take 100 parts of the atmosphere 
in its natural state, it is composed of Nitrogen 77 parts; 
Oxygen 23 parts. These .constitute the foundation of 
our atmosphere, so to speak; but these become charged 
with Carbonic acid, quantity variable with the locality. 
Aqueous vapors, or vapor of water, quantity variable 
with the temperature and humidity. 

Chemical Elements. — There are 64 Chemical ele- 
ments. (In th© English language there are 26 letters 
used to spell words and every word is spelled by a num- 



Astronomy. 75 

ber of these letters placed in shape.) So in like manner 
there are 64 Chemical Elements and everything we see is 
composed of a combination of some or all of these. They 
consist of Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Chlorine, 
Bromine, Iodine, Fluorine, Silicon, Boron, Carbon, 
Sulphur, Selenium, Tellurium, Phosphorus, Arsenic, 
Potassium, Sodium, Caesium, Rubidium, Lithium, Cal- 
cium, Strontium, Barium, Aluminum, Zinc, Iron, Tin, 
Tungsten, Lead, Silver, Gold, etc. 

Waters of the Globe. — These are distinguished as 
Oceansandlnland Waters. 

The Ocean covers nearly three-fourths of the globe 
with a continuous field of water. There is but one real 
Ocean; but the continents partly divide it into five sec- 
tions, called Oceans, as the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, 
Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. The Atlantic Ocean 
separates America from Europe and Africa and comprises 
about 25,000,000 square miles. Its length extends from 
the Arctic to the Antarctic circles, about 9,200 miles. 
Its average width is about 2,000 miles. The Pacific is 
the largest Ocean covering over 70,000,000 square miles, 
or over one-half of the water surface of the globe. It 
extends from Behring Strait to the Anarctic circle, about 
9,200 miles. Its mean width is not far from 8,000 miles. 

The Indian, extends north and south from Asia to the 
Antarctic Circle, and east and west from Africa to Aus- 
tralia, it has an area of about 25,000,000 square miles. 

The Arctic is mainly all water north of the Arctic 
Circle and has an area of about 3,000,000 square miles. 

The Antarctic is all water south of the Antarctic circle. 
Its area is yet unknown on account of the extreme cold 
there rendering that region unexplorable. 



76 Elements of 

This Ocean ii known to enclose two large bodies of 
laud, one called Graham's land, and the other the Ant- 
arctic continent. Though these may be connected in 
the interior of this Ocean, and therefore be but one 
island. 

Life, such as we see around us, would be impossible 
without water. It is everywhere present, both in the 
crust of the Earth and atmosphere, and three-fourths of 
the substance of animals are water, and also nearly the 
whole of the sap of plants. 

Water is a chemical combination of two gases, oxygen 
and hydrogen — 8 parts of oxygen to one of hydrogen. 
When pure it is colorless, tasteless, and has no smell; 
but it is never found in this state, because it absorbs 
gases and dissolves solids and, therefore, these substan- 
ces are always found in it Besides these, the purest 
drop of spring water is full of animalcules or myriads 
of little living animals. 

Vapor of water is deposited in the atmosphere by the 
heat of the Sun, and the air moves off toward some other 
section and if it meets a current of air that is colder than 
itself the vapor becomes condensed, a cloud is formed 
and rain, snow or hail falls upon the Earth. 

On the other hand, if a heavy cloud meets a warm cur- 
rent of air, warmer than itself, the vapor will expand 
and the cloud will disappear. 

So we see that we are due the Sun for our rain, as well 
as light and heat. In fact, the Earth would be of no use 
without the Sun. 

The Earth's Structure. — For many centuries there 
was but little known of the structure of the Earth's crust, 



Astronomy. 77 

but within the last hundred years, however, the rocks 
have been studied with great care, and very important 
discoveries have been made with regard to the history of 
the globe, and the many changes it has gone through. 

It is now an established fact, that the six days of 
creation were periods, and not of rotations of the Earth 
as we have them; but of thousands of years duration, 
during which time great changes took place. 

The first period was the appearance of light; that the 
firmament separated the vapors above from the waters 
below. It is now a known fact, that the Earth at this 
time was a molten sphere, and that all the water on it 
was turned into steam. This would actually shut off all 
the light from any of the heavenly bodies. Yet, they no 
doubt, shined on top of this steam. This era lasted till 
the crust became cool enough for the waters to lie on it 
without being turned into steam. 

Then comes the second period, as the Earth cooled it 
would contract and the crust would soon become too 
large for the molten interior, and would therefore bulge 
up in places and form higher lands, then the water would 
rush to the lower places and weigh the thin crust down 
there. This would cause the lava under the crust to 
move out from under the water and bulge the land up 
higher and higher till the waters were separated from the 
waters, and the dry land would appear. Thus, we see 
why the ocean bed is lower than the land. Now Mol- 
lusks and sea weed would begin to thrive in the waters. 
Thus we pass the second and third era. 

The fourth era is marked by the creation of the Sun, 
Moon and Stars. Now these appeared for the first time. 
Before this the crust was so thin that the waters were 



78 Elements of 

warm 5 causing thick fog and a dense cloud to overshadow 
the Earth, but now the crust became so thick that the 
waters cooled and the fog lay; the cloud broke away and 
the heavens were laid open to view for the first time from 
the Earth, though these were made when the Earth was. 

In the fifth era, the waters brought forth fishes, and 
living things upon the land were beginning to be more 
plentiful, the land, also, began to be covered with vege- 
tation. To the last part of this period we owe for the 
abundance of coal distributed throughout the globe, 
nearly every place where there was land was covered by 
a rank growth of tree-fern and other vegetation, which 
formed the coal. 

The first of the sixth era was marked by the [appear- 
ance of Mammals and every kind of beast that appeared 
before man. 

Last of all, man was created. He is found only in the 
top strata of the crust. Thus the Earth was created and 
made the place of living things, such as we now see 
around us, and unless the Earth is sooner destroyed, man 
will pass away and something else will take his place, as 
has been the case with the different kind of animals that 
have lived before him. 

The crust of the Earth is one of the grandest curiosities 
in nature. It is now about 20 miles thick, 6 miles of 
this is composed of igeneous rock, and 14 miles of strata- 
fied rock. 

The fossils (which means "dug") show us beyond a 
peradventure that the foregoing theory is about correct. 
In these fossils we find the different kind of animals 
petrified and there is nothing to do only examine the 
remains of the animals in each strata. Of course the 



Astronomy. 79 

lower strata was formed first and it undoubtedly formed 
in the same way as the upper one. So then we know 
that it took more than six rotations of the Earth upon its 
axis for all the crust to form up to the strata in which 
we find man. Yes hundreds of thousands of years must 
have passed before this. 

When any one tell us that the creation was all 
finished in six rotations of the Earth, his argument or 
arrangement of the theory is wholly irrelevant. We 
know that there is many cubic miles of matter in the 
stratified crust; yet the Earth, undoubtedly, has no more 
matter now than at first, except the Meteors and Aerolites 
which fall upon it. Then, the crust must have grown. It 
seems that the plants grew up and then fell down and 
rotted, grew up again and fell, and so on, up to the pres- 
ent time. Animals, for the most part, live off plants or 
seeds and they are, therefore, only plants at second hand. 
No animal will eat an absolutely flesh eating animal, but 
a vegetable eating one, they will eat. So the animal de- 
posit in the crust is vegetable deposit at second hand. 

A part of the crust is composed of animalcules; myriads 
of which are found in a single cubic inch of matter. 

The age of the earth cannot be less than six hundred 
thousand years, at least. The age of the epoch of man 
may not be more han six or eight thousand years. 

The days of the week are named from the planets and 
Sun, and all scientists know that the Earth is one of the 
planets, and was formed at the same time that the rest 
were formed. So when people argue as to which day the 
Earth was finished, (Saturday or Sunday) they only 
expose their ignorance. The Creatory days were periods 
of time, and not of rotations. 



80 Elements op 

Mars. — Mars is the next planet to the Earth from the 
Sun. She is the nearest superior planet to the earth. 
Her day is nearly the same length as ours, but her year is 
nearly twice as long (687 days). The Earth's period 
365J days. We see by this that Mars does not move as 
fast in her orbit as the Earth and as she has so much 
farther to travel than the Earth to complete a year; the 
Earth must pass between her and the Sun. Mars, like 
Venus, is sometimes morning and sometimes evening 
star, though there are times when she can be seen at any 
time during the night, rising at sunset and setting at 
sunrise. While at other times she rises and sets with 
the Sun. When Mars is on the opposite side of the 
Earth from the Sun her apparent diameter is 7 times as 
great as when she is on the opposite side of the Sun from 
the Earth, owing to the distance across the Earth's orbit. 
We saw that when Venus was nearest to us her night 
side was turned to the Earth, and we could only see a lit- 
tle of the light up side. With Mars this is not the case 
for her being outside of the Earth from the Sun at that 
time her day or lit up side is toward us, as is the case 
with the full moon. 

To the naked eye Mars shines like a star of the first 
magnitude and so much resembles the firey red Aldebran 
in appearance that it is difficult at first for the unex- 
perienced to distinguish the two apart when both are in 
the same region of the sky. 

Mars is 4,920 miles in diameter and rotates on her axis 
in 24 hours, 37 minutes, and 23 seconds. Her axis are 
inclined to the plane of her ecliptic at an angle of 28 
degrees and 51 minutes. Her year is like ours only 
longer and her tropics are a little further apart than ours. 



Astronomy. 81 

Mars has two Moons, discovered in 1877, and as one of 
these rises in the west and sets in the east, the other 
rises in the east and sets in the west; the inhabitants 
mast be puzzled to understand the cause. A telescopic 
appearance of Mars shows her to be nearly like the Earth 
in every respect. She has atmosphere and in them clouds 
can be seen floating from place to place. She has snow 
and ice around the poles and these can be seen to in- 
crease in the planet's winter and decrease in size in the 
summer, She has water which appears of a greenish 
tinge . She has land and it appears of a fiery red, when her 
atmosphere is clear. Hence, her fiery red light. Seeing 
that she has clouds and snow, we know she has rain and 
is as capable, therefore, in that respect, of supporting in- 
habitants as the Earth. Her mean distance from the 
Sun is 139,312,000 miles. 

Asteroids. — (Greek, Aster, a star, Eidos, form). The 
next to Mars from the Sun are the Asteroids or minor 
planets. 

Owing to their small size and great distance from the 
Earth, but little is known of these little planets, except 
that they do exist and revolve about the Sun the same as 
the large planets. They are nearer to Mars than to 
Jupiter. Some of them are supposed to have an atmos- 
phere and rotate on an axis, like the large planets. 

Jupiter. — Next to the Asteroids from the Sun is 
Jupiter, by far the largest planet in the solar system. 
Jupiter is 1,400 times larger than the Earth. She 
revolves about the Sun in 4,332.58 days or nearly 12 
years. She turns on her axis in 9 hours, 55 minutes and 
28 seconds. She-stands nearly upright in her orbit. 



82 Elements op 

Her axis being only inclined 3 degrees and 4 minutes to 
the plane of her ecliptic. 

Jupiter like Venus is one of the brightest objects in the 
heavens, bright enough at times to cast a shadow. The 
Earth passes Jupiter in her revolution about the Sun, 
therefore, we can see Jupiter at different points in the 
Zodiac, like Mars. 

Jupiter is 475,693,000 miles from the Sun. Her 
diameter is 85,390 miles, and owing to her enormous size 
and quick rotation upon her axis, she is flattened out in 
the direction of the equator, like the earth, her polar 
diameter being to her equatorial as 16 to 17. 

If we represented the Earth's volume, mass and density 
by 100, Jupiter's will be 138,743, 30,000 and 22. So we 
see that if we take sufficient bulk of the Earth's mat- 
ter to weigh 100 pounds the same bulk of Jupiter would 
weigh only 22. A telescopic view of her reveals The Belts 
of Jupiter, as they are called. They are dusky streaks 
which cross a bright background in directions generally 
parallel to the planets equator, sometimes they are multi- 
plied many times, and extend nearly to each pole. 
Sometimes they are broken up into fragments or streaks 
of all lengths. Besides these belts spots are seen, some- 
times bright and sometimes dark. By these spots we can 
readily tell how long it takes the planet to rotate upon 
her axis. . We have only to wateh how long it takes one 
of these to pass across the planet's disk and then multi- 
ply this time by two. 

It is believed by some that the surface of Jupiter has 
never been seen but that she is yet hot and, therefore, 
her water is turned into steam, as was doubtless the case 
once with the Earth, and that we only see the upper ex- 



Astronomy, 83 

tremities of this steam. The belts are probably clouds 
floating on this steam. This great ocean of steam en- 
veloping the planet is probably the cause of the planet's 
density being so much less than that of the Earth. 

Jupiter has four moons, discovered by Galileo, who 
first turned the telescope to practical use, though it 
seems to have been invented by Metius in 1608. Galileo 
heard of the invention and in 1610 constructed one 
for himself, and made many discoveries with it. On the 
very day Galileo died Newton was born; the great discov- 
erer of the law of gravitation. 

The Moons of Jupiter move very rapidly in their 
orbits, about the planet, owing to the great gravitation 
of the planet. 

The plane of their orbit lie nearly in the plane of the 
planets ecliptic, therefore, everytime the Moons come 
between the planet and Sun they eclipse the Sun, and 
everytime they pass behind the planet they are them- 
selves eclipsed. 

When between the planet and Sun they appear to us 
as bright spots on the planet owing to their own day side 
being turned toward us and we see the full face of the 
Moon on the planet; while at other times we see the 
shadow of the Moon cast upon the planet which ap- 
pear as dark spots. 

It was by the difference in the time of these eclipses, 
when Jupiter was on the same side of the Sun with the 
Earth, or in opposition, and when Jupiter was beyond 
the Sun that enabled Romer to discover the velocity of 
light. He found that the eclipse of these moons (which 
he had calculated before) happened 16 minutes and 26 
seconds later when Jupiter was beyond the Sun than 



84: Elements op 

when he was on the opposite side of the Earth from the 
Sun; knowing that these eclipses had the same period he 
had a puzzle at first to know the cause, but a little 
thought convinced him that it was because the light had 
so much farther to travel, (across the Earth's orbit, 183,- 
000,000 miles), he had then only to divide the diameter of 
the Earth's orbit by 16 minutes and 26 seconds to get 
the velocity of light, which is about 185,000 miles a 
second. This fact has been abundantly proven since 
Romer. The aberration of light is one of the proofs. 

Satukn. — The next planet to the Sun is Saturn. 
Saturn is 750 times larger than the Earth. She revolves 
about the Sun in 29^- of our years and turns on her axis 
in 10 hours, 29 minutes and 17 seconds. Her mean dis- 
tance from the Sun is 872,135,000 miles. Her volume 
mass and density, reckoning the Earth's at 100, are 74,- 
689, 9,000 and 12 respectively 

Saturn has belts like Jupiter, and the structure of the 
planet is probably about the same as that of Jupiter. 
She has eight moons which are placed at various dis- 
tances from the planet and course, rapidly along in 
their orbits. 

Besides the eight moons she is surrounded by three 
great rings all lying in the same plane of the planet's 
equator, and rotate in about the same time as the planet 
itself. The planet was, before large telescopes came 
into use, supposed to have two handles like a vase. 
Hence the name, Ansae, or handles, given to the rings. 
Huyghens was the first to discover the true nature of the 
rings in 1655 and described them as follows: 

"aaaaaaa ccccc d eeeee g h iiiiiii 1111 mm nnnnnnn 
nn oooo pp q rr s ttttt uuuuu." 



Astronomy. 85 

These letters in readable shape to us, are: "It is sur- 
rounded by a thin flat ring nowhere attached to its sur- 
face, inclined to the ecliptic." 

Of all the beauties in the house of our solar system, 
Saturn's rings are the gem, and it is strange, when we 
come to consider the great distance Saturn is from us, 
how eye and mind can get so much knowledge of the 
planet, and her rings and moons. 

Saturn's axis are inclined to the plane of the planets 
ecliptic at an angle of 26 degrees and 49 minutes, there- 
fore, we can see one surface of the rings for about fifteen 
years and then the plane of the rings sweep through the 
Earth and Sun and then we see the other surface for the 
same length of time. When the plane of the rings pass 
through the Earth, it is almost impossible to see that 
there is any rings en account of their extreme thinness; 
but when they are presented to the Earth at the greatest 
angle, the rings are a grand picture and add much to its 
beauty. The shadow of the planet can plainly be seen 
on the rings at times which remind one of sun a dial, and 
the inhabitants could calculate when the Sun should be 
at night by this shadow sweeping along on the ring from 
one horizon to the other. 

Urenus. — The next planet to Saturn from the Sun is 
Urenus. 

Urenus is just visible to the naked eye and shines as a 
star of the sixth magnitude. She is 72 times as large as 
the Earth, and revolves about the Sun in 30,686.8205 
days or about 84 of our years. She is 370 times as far 
from the Sun as the Earth or 1,753,851,000 miles. The 
period of her rotation upon her axis, and direction in 
which she rotates is yet unknown. 



86 Elements op 

Her diameter is 33,024 miles. Her volume, mass and 
density, (reckoning the Earth's at 100), and 7,236, 1,300 
and 18 respectively. 

Nothing is known of her physical structure except 
that her specific gravity is about 1-6 that of the Earth. 

Urenus was discovered by Sir William Hershel in 
1781. 

Urenus has four Moons. 

Neptune. — N^xt In order from the Sun is Neptune. 
She is the most remote planet from the Sun. Her period 
of revolution about the Sun is 60, 126.7220 of our days or 
about 166 years. 

Neptune has one Moon. She cannot be seen by the 
naked eye, and seen through the telescope she looks like 
a star of the eighth magnitude. Neptune is 1,000 times 
as far from the Sun as the Earth or 2,746,274,000 miles. 
She is 36,620 miles in diameter. Her volume, mass and 
density is 9,886, 1,700, and 17 (the Earth's at 100) 

Nothing is known of the period of rotation or any- 
thing about her atmosphere. 

She was discovered by Dr. Galle in 1846. If we repre- 
sent the Sun as a globe two feet in diameter, Neptune 
would be represented as a good sized plum, placed about 
a mile and a quarter from it; Urenus, a full sized cherry, 
about three fourths of a mile off; Saturn as a small 
orange two-fifths of a mile off; Jupiter, a good-sized 
orange, one-fourth of a mile off; Mars, as a shawl pin 
head, at a distance of 327 feet; the Earth as a pea, 215 
feet; Venus, as a pen, 142 feet, and Mercury as a mustard 
seed 82 feet from the Sun. The fixed stars would be 
represented as globes from two to four feet in diameter 
placed at distances varying from 5,000 tfo 200,000 miles 



Astronomy. 87 

from the Sun. So we can form an idea of space by this 
illustration which was first given to the world in a 
similar form by Sir Johu Herschel. 

Science and Religion. — The truth of religion is not 
based on any scientific theories, true or false. A man 
with a false theory of science may be a sinner pardoned 
by a loving God through a crucified Redeemer. 

A man with absolutely correct theories of all science 
may be a selfish, wicked man,destitute of the love of God 
and a despiser of salvation, Either of them may be des- 
titute of genuine christian character, or may become 
possessed of such a character without changing his 
theories of science. 

Religion teaches nothing on science, though science 
teaches much of the workings of God. Unfortunately 
some religious teachers try to uphold the truth by false 
arguments and an ignorant arrangement of scientific 
theories which are wholly irrelevant to us. A man's 
ignorance is no part of his christian religion. 

It seems that the scriptures were given to us to teach 
us of things on the surface of the Earth and not of 
things beyond it except those pertaining to God. Though, 
thank God, we are not restrained from learning of things 
in space, and in fact, these things help us to picture out 
the greatness of the great Creator. When a man tells us 
that science does away with the Bible, I would like to 
hear him explain himself. In fact they have just taken 
their first step into the subject, and, therefore, know 
nothing, comparatively, about it. 

All that we can see about a man is but dirt,but his life 
belongs to the Creator. 

The solar system is a machine which is so well adjust- 



88 Elements of 

ed that no man could, if he had the power, better it. 
The Earth does her part and we know that were it not 
for the Earth, it would be impossible for us to live. Yet 
we do not live by the Earth alone. The Sun is the prin- 
cipal part of the machine. To him we are due all the 
world's work. His return brings spring, and a new 
birth of flowers. In fact, but for the Sun, there could 
be no life on the Earth. Man himself, prince of the 
world, is but a small engine, which merely directs the 
energy supplied by the Sun. This system is a great 
machine, and all minor machinery is due to it, but, who 
set this great machine, our solar system, in motion? We 
are bound to say that it was a God, the same as we are 
bound to say that the great steam engines on Earth are 
made by man. 

Comets. — (Greek, Kometer, long haired). These are 
misty bodies which revolve about the Sun in every plane, 
in orbits very elongated. Some of the Comets revolve 
around the Sun in the same direction as the planets, 
while others revolve from east to west. 

The orbits of the Comets are either ellipses, parabolas 
or hyperbolas- 

Comets that revolve about the Sun in elliptical orbits 
have definite periods. 

Enck's Comet revolves around the Sun in 3^ years. 
When it is nearest the Sun, it is only 32,000,000 miles 
from him, or nearer than Mercury, while when it is 
farthest off, it is 387,000,000 miles from him, or nearly 
as far off as Jupiter. So it is with all the rest whose 
periods are known; their orbits are at one point very 
near the Sun while at the other very far off. Halley's 
comet, when nearest the Sun is inside the orbit of Venus 



ASTROKOMY. 89 

and when farthest off, it is about half a billion miles 
beyond the orbit of Neptune. 

Comets that move round the Sun in parabolas or hyper- 
bolas will never return to the Sun. Some of these come 
toward the Sun from one region of the sky and nearly 
graze the Sun at their nearest approach and then go off 
in another direction. If these should revolve around the 
Sun in a fixed period it would be many hundred years 
before they would return, because their aphelion point 
must be as far off as to the nearest fixed star. It is 
believed that they go away to seek other Suns in the 
depths of space and will never return. 

The very brightest part of a comet is called the nucleus 
(Lat., Kernel). The next brightest is called coma, (Lat., 
Hair). The tail is the dimmer portion which flows from 
the head. 

When a comet is far away from the Sun, its light is 
dim. It appears round at this time, and moves very 
slowly toward the Sun. Gradually its motion increases, 
because the Sun's attraction begins to be felt. It be- 
comes brighter and brighter the nearer and nearer it gets 
to the Sun till soon we can see it with the naked eye. 
Soon the heat of the Sun becomes so great on its atmos- 
phere thai it is driven off from the coma and back into 
the tail, it cannot leave the coma but follows it afar off. 
The tail is always turned away from the Sun, whether 
the comet be moving toward or from the Sun. 

As the Comet gets nearer and nearer to the Sun its tail 
is rapidly increased in length in some cases at the rate 
of 30,000,000 miles a day. 

In ancient times when very little was known about 
these objects, they caused great alarm, even among the 



90 Elements of 

heads of governments who thought that they were tokens 
of war, or of the downfall of a king, or the coming of a 
plague, and even later of a real fear that they would col- 
lide with our planet and dash her to pieces. But now it 
is known that these objects are no more or less than 
other objects in space, and can, therefore, bring, to our 
earth, no harm, also that their mass is so small that we 
need not be alarmed. Had we no proof of the latter we 
might guess it from the fact that they have, no doubt, 
been passing our Earth since it was created and have, so 
far done no harm to it. But we have proof that they can- 
not weigh to exceed a few pounds at greatest, and that is 
this: they are so exceedingly diffused, or expanded that 
we can see stars through them where they are many 
thousand miles in diameter. Further, on June 30th, 
1861, it is believed that the Earth passed through a 
comet which suddenly appeared, and all that could be 
noticed was a peculiar phosphorescent mist. Also in 
1776 a comet approached so close to Jupiter that it be- 
came entangled in his Moons, doing them no harm 
whatever. But the course of the comet was changed. 

About 800 Comets are on record, but if we add the 
small Comets that are observed at present in the telescope, 
many more are seen now than formerly. 

Nebulae. — (Lat., Nebula, a cloud). We will first con- 
sider our own universe, which if we could observe it from 
the outside, would be an apparent Nebula. 

Our universe is a great cluster of stars in space. It, 
like the solar system, is flattened out in one direction. 
It, therefore, resembles a circular piece of pasteboard. 
We are somewhere near the centre of this cluster of stars 
and are obliged to look out through it in any direction. 



Astronomy. 91 

At right angles to the milky way the stars are all large 
and far apart. But on the south side of the milky way 
the stars are, for the most part, thicker and smaller than 
they are on the north side, therefore we see that we are 
a little to the north of the middle of this cluster of stars. 

As we bring the eye up, in any direction, from this 
point toward the milky way; on either side of it, the 
stars grow less and less, and thicker and thicker until 
we reach the milky way where they appear as a great 
circle of milk. The milky way, therefore, shows us the 
direction in which our universe is extended farthest. 

The stars are all named but as some of the larger stars 
that appear as a single star to the naked eye are known, 
by the telescope, to be multiplied, (as Theta Orinis, 
which to the naked eye is a single star, is composed of 
seven stars), the number of stars in our universe is not 
known, though they may not exceed twenty million. 

The nearest fixed star to our Sun is about 19,000,000,* 
000,000 miles. Eeckoning all the stars in our universe 
at twenty million and placing them at this enormous dis- 
tance apart, we can imagine the enormous field in space 
that our universe fills. In fact, the light from the 
remotest star in our universe, though it travels at the 
rate of 185,000 miles a second, would require 50,000 
years to reach our eye. That is as much as to say that 
we see the star now as it was 50,000 years ago. These 
figures are often disputed, but a thorough study of 
astronomy will soon do away with doubt. 

The telescope teaches us that our universe is not all 
the objects that are to be seen in space. Dotted here 
and there, clear beyond our universe are other universes, 
and the telescope shows some of these to be nothing but 



92 Elements op 

stars which are formed into great clusters far far in the 
deepest depths of space. And yet, this distance though 
so great, is nothing to the distance beyond these clusters. 
In fact, there is no end to space. 

We come back and look at our little Earth and Moon 
and then look at our insignificant solar system and then 
at our universe and then clear beyond it at other 
universes; probably if we could see farther we could see 
universes clustered into a universe whose diameter would 
be almost infinite. No man will ever be able to know 
where the end of objects in space is. 

I can but say : 

WHAT WE ARE. 

All space eo wide, is full of stars, 

Great planets, Suns nnd Moons, 
And clusters great, beyond our own, 

Are whirling round and round. 

From Mars 1 so near, this world's a star, 

Just like a grain of sand, 
Why should the great Creator care 

For such a speck as man ? 

This little globe, a speck, a star, 

Goes yearly round the Sun, 
To mark tho season's of the year, 

Unfelt, unknown to man. 

I feel like I am nothing, I 

Am almost left forlorn ; 
Of all the wheat below the sky, 

I am just one small corn. 

Our life on earth is but a span, 

Our days, they are but few, 
O, may we be on God's right hand, 

When all things are made new I 

The Stars. —Some of the Stars appear brighter than 
others. Therefore, all that we can see with the naked 
eye are divided into six classes called Magnitudes. The 



Astronomy. 93 

most brilliant ones (20 in number) are of the first mag- 
nitude; 65 are of the second magnitude; 200 of the third; 
450 of the fourth; 1,100 of the fifth; 4,000 of the sixth. 
The number increases as we go down the scale of bril- 
liancy. 

With the telescope we may carry this scale down as far 
as we please. Two of Saturn's Moon's, Mimas and 
Hyperion, are of the 17th magnitude. Astar of the 6th 
magnitude is just visible to the naked eye. 

The number of Stars of all magnitudes, as seen with 
the naked eye, is about 6,000. But we cannot see but 
half the sky at a time, so the largest number that we 
can see at one time is about 3,000. If we use a small 
telescope we increase the number largely. With a 
powerful telescope about 20,000,000 stars are seen. These 
are called Telescopic Stars that are seen with the teles- 
cope. 

Motion of the Stars. — The Stars and Constellations 
occupy the same positions they did thousands of years 
ago. It would seem, therefore, that the Stars are at rest. 
But that is not the case, they are in motion, and this 
motion is noticed in some of the Stars nearest to us. 

The reason we do not readily see that they move is be- 
cause they are so far off. Neptune, one of our planets 
revolves around the Sun in 166 years, though she is seen 
for a long time in the same region of the sky, only move- 
ing about two degrees in a year. The fixed Stars are 
many times as far off and would appear to move less. 
Nor is our Star, the Sun, at rest; he is in motion, move- 
ing toward the constellation, Hercules, at the rate of four 
miles a second and carrying his planets with him. This 
will in ages and ages to come make a change in the ap- 



94: Elements of 

pearance of the Stars. The stars we are leaving will ap- 
pear dimmer and dimmer, while those we are approach- 
ing will grow brighter and brighter. * 

The Stars in the universe revolve about the centre of 
the universe, the same as the planets in the solar system 
revolve about the Sun. 

Double Stars. — The telescope show us that some of 
the Stars that appear as mere points of light, to these 
feeble twinklers, the eyes, are double and multiple. A 
beautiful star in the constellation Lyra, called Epsilon 
Lyra, appears as a single star; an opera glass shows it 
double and a large telescope reveals the fact that each of 
these stars is itself double; hence it is called the double 
double. 

Multiple Stars. — Theta Orioncs is one of the finest 
of these. To the naked eye it appears as a point of light, 
but with a powerful telescope, it is found to be composed 
of seven stars. There is about 6,000 double Stars, or as 
many as can be seen, of any kind, with the unaided eye. 

Colored Stars. — Some Stars are white, others red, 
blue, green, orange and purple, respectively. 

Variable Stars. — Some of the stars differ in bright- 
ness at different times. These are called Variable Stars. 
There are about 100 of these. Eta Argus is a variable 
Star changing its magnitude from 1st to 4th in 46 years; 
R. Cephes, changes from 5 to 11 in 73 years; R. Cassiopea, 
from 6 to 14 in 435 days; Omicron Ceti, from 1 to 11 in 
331§ days; Zeta Cancri, from 8 to 10 J in 10 days; Beta 
Persii from 2£ to 4 in 2 9-10 days. In some cases it is 
remarkable how fast these stars disappear and then all 
of a sudden brighten up. 



Astroxomy. 95 

New Stars.— In 1572 a Star suddenly appeared in the 
sky and was visible for seventeen months as a Star as 
bright as Venus at her greatest brilliancy: It was bright 
enough to be visible at noon. In 1264 and in 945 the 
same phenomena was witnessed in the same constellation 
(Cassiopea). It may reappear again about the year 1885. 

Meteors.— (Greek, Meteorn, luminous). These are so 
small that they do not strike the Earth when they fall, 
but come into our atmosphere with great rapidity pro- 
ducing a light. They become vaporized long before they 
reach the surface of the Earth. In some cases they may 
not weigh more than a few grains. Sometimes they fall 
in showers and are then called star showers. 

The most remarkable of these showers are the Novem- 
ber and Ap^il showers. 

The Meteors, like the planets, revolve about the Sun; 
with the exception of those seen on any clear night, they 
are in groups, and as their orbit cross the Earth's orbit 
we will have a shower of Meteors when the Meteors are 
in a node. Now let us just imagine the group of Meteors 
to be in a node and the Earth coming along in her orbit, 
her attraction is soon felt and these little specks of 
Meteoric dust lose their balance and fall to the Earth. 
About a dozen of these November showers of Meteors are 
recorded. On the night of Nov. 12th, 1799; on the 13th 
of Nov., 1833, and on the 14th of Nov., 1866, there was 
a re-occurrence of these remarkable phenomena. 

They are looked for again on the night of Nov. 12th, 
1896. In some cases more Meteors fall in a minute than 
there are stars visible at the time in the sky. 

Meteorites. —These differ from the Meteors. They 



96 Elements of 

are masses which, owing to their size, fall through the 
air to the Earth. 

Their position in the heavens is not known, they may 
revolve around the Sun in orbits like the large planets 
and come too near the Earth at their perigee, and, there- 
fore, leave their orbit so much that they actually lose 
their balance and fall to the Earth, or they may wander 
from place to place in the depths of space and finally 
come so near the Earth that they fall to it. 

Let this be as it may, several remarkable showers of 
Meteoric stones are on record. 

When an Aerolite or Meteoric stone, falling to the 
Earth, strike the air, it appears like a keen clap of thun- 
der, then is heard for some seconds a long rumbling con- 
fused noise and, if we are standing where we can see it, 
a stone falls like a streak of lightning and goes into the 
ground five or six feet. 

One of the largest Aerolitic masses that has fell upon 
the Earth, in modern times, was at Kuyahinza, in 
Hungary, on the 9th of June, 1866, when an Aerolite 
which weighed six hundred pounds and nearly one 
thousand small stones, which were no doubt shattered off 
from the large one, fell. The stones scattered over an 
area of about 40 square miles. Many such showers, 
though of smaller stones, are on record. Men and cattle 
are sometimes killed by them. 

The Constellations. — The great vault of the heavens 
is divided up into Constellations the same as the surface 
of the Earth is divided up into states and counties. 
Each Star in each Constellation is named the same as 
each city and each town on the Earth is named. 

The names of the constellations are : 



Astronomy. 



97 



Aries, 

Pieces, 

Andromeda, 

Tarandus, 

Triangulum Minus, 

Perseus, 

Orion, 

Telescopaum Herscheli, 

Gemini, 

Eridanus, 

Lynx, 

Leo, 

Leo Minor, 

Virgo, 

Cane*- Venetici, 

Bootes, 

Quadrans Muralis, 

Draco, 

Libra, 

Gygnus, 

Capheus, 

Gloria Frederici, 

Vulpecula Etanser, 

Serpens, 

Jetus, 

Machina Electrica, 

Phoenix, 

Psaiterium Georgianum, 

Hydrus, 

Nubecula Major, 

Horologium, 

Lepus, 



Taurus, 

Cassiopea, 

Custos Messium, 

Musca Borealis, 

Trianglum Majus, 

Camelopardus, 

Aurga, 

Sagnia, 

Caput Medusae, 

Canis Minor, 

Hydra, 

Cancer, 

Ursa Major, 

Coma Berenices, 

Mons Menelaus, 

Corona Borealis, 

Hercules, 

Taurus Poniatowski, 

Agnila, 

Ursa Minor, 

Lacerta, 

Pagasus, 

Deerhinus, 



Apparatus Sculptorus, 

Fornax Chemica, 

Eridanus, 

Nubecula Minor, 

Mous Mensae, 

Reticulum Rhomboidale, 

Dorado, 

Sceptrum Brandeburgium, 



98 



Elements of 



Columba, 

Equuleus Pictorius, 

Chameleon, 

Canis Major, 

Monoceros, 

Linea Nantica, 

Machina Pnematica, 

Hydra, 

Crater, 

Solitarius, 

Scorpio, 

Centaurus, 

Musca AustraKs, 

Octans, 

Triangulum Austral a, 

Ophinchus, 

Antinous, 

Telescopium, 

Pavo, 

Toncanus, 

Capricornus, 

Piscis Australis, 



Coela Scalptoris, 

Piscis Volanis, 

Navis Argo, 

Antlia Typographia, 

Pyxis Nautica, 

Felis, 

Robur Carlinum, 

Saxtaus Uranie, 

Coures, 

Libra, 

Lupus, 

Crux, 

Avis Paradisi, 



Ara, 

Scutum Sobieski, 
Sagittarius, 
Coma Australis, 
Indus, 

Microscopium Grus, 
Globus Aerostatius, 
Aquarias. Norma. 

The names of the letters of the Greek alphabet, used in 
naming the stars are : 

Alpha, Iota, Eho, 

Beta, Kappa, Sigma, 

Gamma, Lambda, Tau, 

Delta, Mu, Upsilon, 

Epsilon, Nu, Phi, 

Zeta, Xi, Chi, 

Eta, Omicron, Psi, 

Theta, Pi, Omega. 



ASTRONOMT. 99 

After the Greek alphabet is used, the Roman alphabet 
is used; and after that is gone, numbers are used, till 
every Star in the Constellation is named. 

If a Star was to disappear it would not be long before 
it would be noticed by astronomers. The planets (the 
Earth one among the number) revolve about the Sun 
and are, therefore, seen at different times in different 
places in the Zodiac. 

Isothermal Lines. — (Greek, Isos Therme, equal heat). 
Are lines connecting places that have the same mean 
temperature. Charts showing these lines are called 
Isothermal Charts. They show us the mean temperature 
of different regions of the Globe. 

The highest temperature on the globe is 87°. A small 
portion of South America north of the Amazon river, 
and a portion of the interior of Africa, and Sumatra, 
Borneo, and New Guinea Islands have a mean tempera- 
ture of 81°. The region of greatest heat is in the Desert 
Sahara. Enclosing the region marked 81° and taking a 
wider field is a region marked 79°. This is a little north 
of the equator, for the most part. 

The line of 72° (north of the equator) from 140 west 
longitude, (from Greenwich,) to 160 east longitude is on 
25 degrees north latitude, from 160 degrees east longitude 
to 130, it goes south to 21° north latitude, here it takes a 
northerly course, then along the Himalaya Mountains, 
and to 60° east longitude 31° north latitude, then it 
angles back south a little, then north a little along the 
south shore of the Mediterranean Sea, then a little south 
across the northern part of Africa, and across the Atlan- 
tic and crosses southern part of Florida and crosses 



100 Elements of 

southern Texas and the northern part of Mexico, then 
due west on or near 25° north latitude to the point where 
we started, or around the world, to 140° west longitude. 

The line of mean heat marked fifty crosses the 160° 
west longitude line on 45° north latitude, then it takes a 
southerly course to 110 east longitude to where it crosses 
the Hong Ho River, about 38° north latitude, and then it 
angles back north across the northern part of the Black 
Sea and to the head waters of the Danube River, here 
it takes a northwest course to the northern part of Great 
Britain, to 3 degrees west longitude and 55° north lati- 
tude, here it turns southwest and crosses 60° west longi- 
tude on the 41st parallel, then a little south of west to 
102° west longitude, here it is on the 40th parallel, now it 
takes a northwesterly course to 130° west longitude, here 
it is on 50° north latitude, now it turns south a little to 
the place of starting. 

The line of 32° mean temperature crosses the meridian 
160° west longitude on 55 degrees north latitude, then 
southwest a little, then west to the east shore of Kam- 
tchatka, then south a little across the southern part of 
"the sea of Okhotsk and touches the eastern shore of the 
main land of Asia about 2° south of the mouth of the 
Amoor river, then west on 50° north latitude from 140° 
to 100° east longitude, then northwest to the head of 
Kama River on 60° north latitude and 55° east longitude, 
then due north between the head waters of Dwina and 
Petchora Rivers, to 64° north latitude and 55° east longi- 
tude, then northwest across the mouth of the White Sea 
and crosses 40° east longitude at 67° north latitude, then 
west a little, then southwest to 65° north latitude and 20° 
east longitude, then west a little, then northwest a little, 



Astronomy. 101 

then north, then back northeast to North Cape to 71° 
north latitude and 30° east longitude, then northwest to 
72° north latitude and 20° east longitude, then southwest 
to the north shore of Iceland, then to Cape Farewell, 
Greenland, then to Cape Charles, Labrador, North 
America, to 60° west longitude and 51° north latitude, 
then west to the south shore of Hudson Bay, to 80° west 
longitude 51° north latitude, then northwest to 130° 
west longitude and 62° north latitude, then west a little, 
then southwest along the south shore of Alaska to 160° 
west longitude and 55° north latitude around the world 
to the place of starting. This is the northern line of 
vegetation in the northern hemisphere and is the 
most crooked Isothermal line on the globe. 

Now we will go south of the equator and study the 
Isothermal lines there. The line of 72° south of the 
equator crosses the line 160° west longitude 25° south 
latitude, then runs due west to 130° east longitude and 
25° south latitude to the centre of Australia, then north 
west a little to 90° east longitude and 19° south latitude, 
then southwest a little to 50° east longitude and 25° south 
latitude, to the south shore of Madagascar, then north- 
west a little across Africa to Cape Negro and on to 
longitude and 15° south latitude, then west a little, then 
south west to 40° west longitude and 25° south latitude, 
then northwest across South America to 90° west longi- 
tude and 3° south latitude, then southwest to 160° west 
longitude and 25° south latitude to the place of starting. 
The line of 50° temperature crosses the line of 160° 
west longitude at 46° south latitude, then it runs due 
west to the south shore of New Zealand and on to the 
east shore of South America, then northwest a little, 



Q 



102 Elemekis of 

then southwest a little to 160° west longitude and 46° 
south latitude to the place of starting. 

The line of 32° temperature crosses the line of 160° 
west longitude at 59° south latitude and runs exactly due 
west more than half around the globe to 30° west longi- 
tude, then southwest to 55° west longitude and 63° south 
latitude, then northwest to 70° west longitude and 59° 
south latitude, then due west to 160° west longitude and 
59° south latitude to the place of starting. 

It will be noticed that the Isothermal lines are nearer 
due east and west south of the equator than they are 
north of it. This is caused by there being more land 
north of the equator than there is south of it. If the 
globe was covered with water these lines would be exactly 
due east and west. 

In the northern hemisphere, the western shore of con- 
tinents are warmer than the eastern. This is because 
the warm ocean currents and anti-trade winds are mov- 
ing from the southwest to the northeast and are, there- 
fore, leaving the eastern shore of the continents and 
striking against the western. But for this, Norway and 
Sweden could not be inhabited. 

In the southern hemisphere the western shores of con- 
tinents are colder than the eastern. This is because 
there is cold currents in the ocean coming from the 
southwest and striking against the western shore and 
continually cooling them off. While in the eastern 
shore there is a warm current running south west and 
warming up the eastern shore. Why this is so, is not 
yet satisfactorily explained. But observation shows it to 
be a fact. 

Tides. — (Sexon, tidan, to happen). Tides are the 



Astronomy. 103 

the waters of the ocean rising and falling twice in a lunar 
day. 

The water would be at rest, but for the attraction of 
the Sun and Moon. But as the Earth turns on her axis 
she brings every part of her surface, (in the latitude of 
the M )on,) to the Moon in 24 hours and 54 minutes, as 
the Moon's attraction tends to lift objects from the Earth, 
it lifts the water a little and causes it to pile up under 
the Moon. So, then, there is a cone of water piled up 
under the Moon which follows her throughout her 
journey round the Earth called tides. 

There is also a Tide, which is smaller than that caused 
by the Moon, caused by the attraction of the Sun. Now 
since the Sun and Moon are not always in the same 
region of the sky, it will be seen that when this does 
happen the Tide will be higher, because the Sun's Tide is 
added to the Moon's at this time and subtracted from it 
when the Moon is at her quarter. 

But this is not all, there is a Tide exactly on the 
opposite side of the Earth from the Moon and Sun, of 
exactly the same height as that on the side toward them. 
The cause of this may be explained as follows : 

Every body in space revolves around the centre of 
gravity, (or is moved out of its course) with the Earth. 
So the Earth's centre revolves monthly around the centre 
of gravity between the Earth and Moon, with a radius of 
3,000 miles. Now if the centre of the Earth revolves 
around a point whose radius is 3,000 miles, a point of 
the surface of the Earth opposite the Moon would have a 
radius of 7,000 miles, because it is about 4,000 miles from 
the centre of the Earth to the surface. 

This fact, may be considered in two ways. 1st. The 



104 Elements of 

Earth falls Moonward 3,000 miles in a week or 19 miles 
in an hour. This would cause a relief of pressure suf- 
ficient to produce a Tide on the opposite side of the Earth 
from the Moon of about five feet deep. 

2d. You may better understand the idea of the oppo- 
site Tide by referring it to the centrifugal force produced 
by the inertia of the waters in consequeuce of the 
monthly revolution of the Earth about the common 
centre of gravity between the Earth and Moon. A point 
of the Earth's surface opposite this centre would revolve 
around a circle whose radius is 7,000 miles. The cir- 
cumference of such a circle is 43,982 miles. This 
journey in 29 days gives a velocity of just about a mile a 
minute. This throwing off, as it were, would lessen the 
weight of bodies at that point 1-5,300. As the water of 
the ocean is about five miles deep this would give a Tide 
of 1-5,300 of five miles, or almost exactly five feet, which 
observation gives as the real Tide. Now as the Moon's 
tide is five feet and the Sun's Tide is 2-5 of that, we will 
see that the highest, or spring Tide will be seven feet. 
When the Moon is at her quadratures the Tide is called 
the Neap Tides. 

When the crest of the Tide strike a place, or at hi^h 
Tide, it is called Flood Tide, and when there is no tide,- 
or the water is at its lowest point, it is called Ebb Tide. 

The height of the Tide on the shore differ widely at 
different places even in the same latitude. This is caused 
by the unevenness in the bottom of the ocean and that 
of the shore. In the deep ocean where there is no 
islands the Tidal wave moves fastest, but in shallow 
water obstructed with islands the .Tidal wave is slower. 



Astronomy. 105 

The line joining the crest of the wave at every point from 
north to south at any hour is called Cotidal Lines. 

In Chesapeake Bay the Tide runs as high as 15 feet; at 
the mouth of the Bay of Fundy 18 feet, but at its head, 
the Tide is 70 feet. This is the highest Tide in the world. 
When the Tide rushes into peculiar mouthed bays and 
rush up them with great rapidity, the highest Tide pos- 
sible is produced at their heads, while in narrow mouthed 
seas and gulfs, or lakes unconnected with the ocean, or 
land locked, there is no Tide, or very little if any. 

The Tidal wave rushing up rivers, damming them up 
and rushing up them with great rapidity raising the 
water several feet is called the Bore. The most remark- 
able Bores are in the Hoogly branch of the Ganges, the 
Brahmapootra, Amazon and Tsien-Tang Rivers. 

Tide ok the Air. — Besides the Tide on the waters of 
the Earth there is also a Tide on the Air. As Air is 800 
times lighter than water, and as the Tide on the ocean is 
five feet we find that the Air Tide is just about 4-5 of a 
mile deep on the side of the Earth next the Moon and 
the same on the side opposite her, caused in the same 
way as that caused on the water. 

Prof. Churchill in his review on this subject, to me, 
says: "As the causes exist there can be no doubt the 
Tides exist." 

The Telescope. — (Greek, Tele Skopeos. Afar, I see). 
Is a combination of lenses. If we enclose a light with a 
small globe, not transparent, the rays that fall on the in- 
side of the globe will be very great. Then if we use a 
larger globe the rays will not be so great on each square 
inch because there is just so much light and no more and 



106 Elements of 

it has a larger field to fall on. So it is with the eye. If 
we hold the eye near a light the rays are very bright, but 
if we move back the dimmer and dimmer the light will 
grow till we are so far off that only a little of the light 
reach the eye. But if we had an instrument made so as 
to receive more light than the eye and then converge the 
rays so that they will fall upon the eye we will see the 
light as well as if the eye were as large as the instru- 
ment. Such a thing is the Telescope. If the field glass 
or leus is one foot in diameter and made so as to bring 
all the rays that fall upon it down to the size of the 
sight of the eye, of course, they will all enter the eye and 
we will see as well as if the sight of the eye was one foot 
in diameter. This is the simple form of the Telescope 
and it would seem as though only one lens was needed. 
But as red will converge least, orange next, yellow next, 
green next, blue next, indigo next, and violet the greatest, 
these colors can be seen in rings as they fall back from 
the lens and these colors spoil the image and we cannot 
see it. To clo away with the colors two lenses are used, 
one a bi-convex lens, with both sides convex 3 and a bi- 
concave lens with both sides concave. 

"Now as the bi-convex lens is thin at the edge and 
thick in the centre, and the bi-concave lens is thick at 
the edge and thin in the centre, it would seem as though 
one would exactly undo what the other would do. So 
they would if both were made of the same material. But 
the front or convex lens is made of crown glass whose 
dispersive power, we may say is 33-1,000, while the con- 
cave lens is made of flint glass whose dispersive power 
is 52-1,000. Thus we see that there can be a difference 
in tlie shape of the two lenses. The convex lens is 



Astronomy. 107 

thicker in the centre than the concave one is on the edge 
so the concave lens will not restore the ray to its original 
direction but will take away all the color and the two 
lenses combined are called the Achromatic Lens (Greek, 
a Croma, without color). 

Thus, we have the field lens. The rays come to a 
focus at some distance from this lens. This is called the 
Focal Length of the Telescope. Now it would seem that 
all we have to do is to hold the eye at the point where 
the rays come to a focus. But that is not the case, 
because the rays do not enter the eye parallel and the 
image is, therefore, blurred. To do away with this we 
must use another set of lenses. The one of these next to 
the achromatic lens is a small bi-convex lens which is 
placed so that all the rays of light from the field glass 
will fall upon it, thus shortening the focal length of the 
Telescope Now it is evident that after we pass the 
focus the rays of light will begin to expand or diverge. 
At the same distance beyond the focus (as the lens we just 
mentioned is in front of it) is another lens called the 
Piano Convex Lens, or one side plain and the other con- 
vex.^ This lens changes the direction of the rays again. 
The convex side is turned toward the object, therefore, 
the ray is bent a little, the plain side is turned to the eye 
and as the rays leave this lens they leave it in parallel 
lines and if we hold the eye near it we can see the image 
we are observing the same as we could do if there was no 
telescope there, and yet grasp all the light that fall upon 
the field lens. Thus we have four lenses in the Telescope, 
but the four are spoken of as two, namely, the field 
glass and the eye piece. 



108 Elements of 

The tube in which these lenses are placed is of no use 
whatever, except to hold the lenses in place. 

The largest refracting telescope in the world is one con- 
structed in England. The object glass of this instrument 
is 25 inches in diameter, the pupil of the eye is but 1-5 of 
an inch, therefore, this object glass will receive about 
15,000 times as much light from a heavenly body as the 
eye can, but it bears a power of only 3,000. If we look 
at the Moon through this telescope we will see it as if it 
was 3,000 times nearer or at a distance of only 80 miles. 

There is another kind of Telescope called the Reflecting 
Telescope. 

A mirror is placed at the bottom of a long tube and 
the hollow end of the tube is turned toward the object 
we wish to observe, and the light that falls on the mir- 
ror is thrown back toward the object and brought to a 
focus at one side of the end of the tube, an eye piece, the 
same as that used in the other kind of Telescope, is 
placed so that it will receive the rays and bring them to 
the eye, we stand with our back to the object and look 
at it in the mirror, and, of course, we receive all the light 
that falls on the mirror. 

The largest of these was made by the Earl of Rosse. 
The mirror is six feet in diameter and will receive about 
250,000 times more light than the eye can. 



Astronomy. 109 

Names of Some of the Asteroids or Minor Planets. 





(The symbols oJ 

Ceres. 


f these J 

28. 


ittle planets are nui 


iibers, i 

55. 


xs 1, 2, 3, etc.) 


1. 


Bellona. 


Pandora. 


2. 


Pallas. 


29. 


Amphitrite. 


56. 


Melete. 


3. 


Juno. 


30. 


Urania. 


57. 


Mnemosyne. 


4. 


Vesta. 


31. 


Euphrosyne. 


58. 


Concordia. 


5. 


Astraea. 


32. 


Pomona. 


59. 


Olympia. 


6. 


Hebe. 


33. 


Polyhymnia 


. 60. 


Echo. 


7. 


Iris. 


34. 


Circe. 


61. 


Danae. 


8. 


Flora. 


35. 


Leucothea. 


62. 


Erato. 


9. 


Metis. 


36. 


Atalanta. 


63. 


Ausonia. 


10. 


Hygeia. 


37. 


Fides. 


64. 


Angeline. 


11. 


Parthenope. 


38. 


Leda. 


65. 


Maximiliana, 


12. 


Victoria. 


39. 


Laetitia. 


66. 


Maia. 


13. 


Egeria. 


40. 


Harmonia. 


67. 


Asia. 


14. 


Irene. 


41. 


Daphne. 


68. 


Leto. 


15. 


Eunomia. 


42. 


Isis. 


69. 


Hesperia. 


16. 


Psyche. 


43. 


Ariadne. 


70. 


Panopea. 


17. 


Thetis. 


44. 


Nysa. 


71. 


Niobe. 


18. 


Melpomene. 


45. 


Eugenia. 


72. 


Feronia. 


19. 


Fortuna. 


46. 


Hestia. 


73. 


Clytie. 


20. 


Massilia. 


47. 


Aglaia. 


74. 


Galatea. 


21. 


Lutetia. 


48. 


Doris. 


75. 


Eurydice. 


22. 


Calliope. 


49. 


Pales. 


76. 


Preia. 


23. 


Thalia. 


50. 


Virginia. 


77. 


Frigga. 


24. 


Themis. 


51. 


JNTemausa. 


78. 


Diana. 


25. 


Phocea. 


52. 


Europa. 


79. 


Eurynome. 


26. 


Proserpine. 


53. 


Calypso. 


80. 


Sappho. 


27. 


Euterp. 


54. 


Alexandra. 


81. 


Terpsichore. 



110 






Elements 


OF 




82. 


Alcmene. 


91. 


Aegina. 


100. 


Hecate. 


83. 


Beatrix. 


92. 


Undina. 


101. 


Helena. 


84. 


Clio. 


93. 


Minerva. 


102. 


Miriam. 


85. 


Io. 


94. 


Aurora. 


103. 


Hera. 


86. 


Semele. 


95. 


Arethusa. 


104. 


Clymene. 


87. 


Sylvia. 


96 


Aegle. 


105. 


Artemis. 


88. 


Thisbe. 


97. 


Clotho. 


106. 


Dione. 


89. 


Julia. 


98. 


Ianthe. 


107. 


Camilla. 


90. 


Antiope. 


99. 


Dike. 


108. 


Hecuba, eta 



Astronomy. 



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114 Elements of 

It will be seen by the above table that the Earth 
rotates on her axis in nearly four minutes less than 24 
hours, yet her day is 24 hours long. This difference in 
time is due to the curviture shape of her orbit and the 
distent accomplished in one day, or, the Earth only 
rotates, in regard to a star, 364J times in a year, but her 
journey around the Sun makes it one time or one day 
more in regard to the Sun. 

Also, it will be noticed that the axis of Urenus is in- 
clined to the plane of her orbit at an angle of 90 degrees. 
Now since 90 degrees is one fourth of a circumference 
this would seem strange unless explained. It is generally 
said that the motions of the Moons of Urenus and Nep- 
tune are retrograde, but it is coming to light that, if so, 
their retrograde motion is very slight. The real revolu- 
tion of the Moons of Urenus and Neptune are about 
exactly north and south, their orbits making a very small 
angle with one of our meridians, but if they revolve 
parallel to their primaries equator, then, these planets 
are inclined about 90 degrees to their orbits. The Sun 
would, therefore, shine exactly on each pole in one 
revolution of these planets about the Sun. Of course the 
exact inclination of their axis to the plane of their orbit 
is not proven. 



Astronomy. 115 

Alphabetical, Etymological Vocabulary of 
Astronomical Terms. 



Aberration of Light — (Lat # , Ab Errare, to wander) 
We are always obliged to hold the telescope a little in 
advance of the star we are looking at in order to get the 
light from it. Because the telescope is carried around 
the Sun by the Earth's yearly motion, and as it takes 
time for the light to come from the star to us, its abora- 
tional place is different to its real one. 

Absorption of the Atmosphere of the Sun. — Apiece 
of colored glass will teach us what is meant by this. 
Thus, green glass stops all the rays of light coming from 
the Sun, but the green it is a kind of a sieve, so it is with 
other glasses, solids, vapors or liquids. 

Achromatism. — (Greek, a Croma, without color). Des- 
titute of color. 

Aerolites. — (Greek, Aer Litos, air stones). Stones 
that fall upon the Earth through the air. 

Aerosiderites.— (Greek, Aer Sidros, air iron). Iron 
that falls through the air. 

Aerosiderolites. — (Greek, Aersideros Litos). Pieces 
of meteoric matter of any kind falling through the air. 

Aigrettes. — Rays of light seen through the corona in 
a total eclipse of the Sun. 

Air. — The fluid we breathe. It is composed of nitro- 
gen 77 parts, oxygen 23 parts. In its pure state it has 
no aqueous vapor or other substances. 



116 Elements of 

Alta Zimuth. — It is a kind of telescope used to meas* 
ure the altitude and azimuth. 

Angle.— (Lat. Angulus, a corner). It is two lines 
that meet. 

Annular. — (Anulus, a ring). It is an eclipse of the 
Sun that would be total if the Moon was in perigee, but 
as she is in apogee, she is so far from the Earth that she 
looks smaller than the Sun, therefore a ring of the Sun 
can be seen all around the Moon. 

Anomalistic Month. — It is the time in which the 
Moon accomplishes a revolution about the Earth to the 
same point of her movable orbit. 

Ansae. — (Lat. Handles). The ancient name of Saturn's 
rings, which was supposed to be handles on the planet. 

Anti-Trades. — Constant winds that blow northeast 
and southeast from the equator. 

Aphelion. — (Greek, Apo Elios, from the Sun). The 
point in the Earth's orbit farthest from the Sun 

Apogee. — (Greek, Apo Ge, from the Earth). The 
point in the Moon's orbit farthest from the Earth. 

Apsis. — (Greek, Apsis, a curve). A line joining the 
aphelion and perihelion points; plural Apsids. 

Ascending Node. — The point in the Moon or a plan- 
et's orbit, where it passes to the north of the ecliptic. 

Ascension. — Right, celestial longitude reckoned from 
the first point of Aries. 

Asteroid. — (Greek, Aster Eidos, a star form). It is a 
minor planet. 



ASTKONOMY. 117 

Astronomy — (Greek, Aster Nomos, a star law). It is 
a science that treats on the stars. 

Atmosphere. — (Greek, Atmos Sphaira, vapor sphere). 
It is the air. 

Attraction. — To draw toward the centre. 

Axis. — The imaginary line round which a heavenly 
body rotates. 

Azimuth. — (Arabic, Samatha, to go toward). It is to 
altitude what longitude is to latitude using the zenith as 
one pole; or the angular distance from the north or south 
points of the meridian. 

Bissextile. — (Lat. Bis Sextus, twice six). 

Bodes Law.— [f we write, 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, 48, 96, and 
then add 4 to each, we get 4, 7, 10, 16, 28, 52, 100, and 
then multiply each number by 9 we get the distance of 
each planet from the Sun, very nearly, in millions of 
miles. This is called Bodes Law. 

Calendar. — The present mode of reckoning time. 

Calms, — Belts of Calms around the Earth east and 
west at the equator and tropics. 

Celestial Sphere. — The great vault of the heavens. 

Centre of Gravity. — The point where two heavenly 
bodies would balance were they joined by a great iron 
bar. 

Centrifugal Force. — As the Earth goes around the 
Sun at the rate of 60 thousand miles an hour, and as her 
forward motion would be in a straight line were it not 
for the gravitation of the Sun, she has a tendency from 



118 Elements op 

the sun exactly equal to the tendency toward him. So 
she takes neither the line from the Sun nor the one 
toward him but goes half way between the two, which 
brings her back around to where she started. The ten- 
dency from the centre is called centrifugal force, the ten- 
dency toward the centre the centripetal force. The Earth 
cannot leave the Sun on account of the centripetal force, 
nor she cannot fall upon him on account of the centri- 
fugal. So in fact she is resting on these two forces. 

Chronograph. — (Greek, Cronos Graph o . time I write) 
An instrument used to determine the time of the transit 
of a heavenly body across the field of view of a transit 
circle. 

Circle. — A plane figure bounded by a curve, every 
point of which is equally distant from a point within 
called the centre. 

Circumference of a Circle.— The line that bounds 
a circle. 

Clapsydrae. — (Greek, Kleps udra, a water clock). It 
is supposed to be the first clock ever used. It resembled 
the hour glass, water being used instead of sand. 

Coma. — (Lat., Hair). The brightest part of a Comet. 

Comet.— (Greek, Komete, long haired). A heavenly 
body with a tail. 

Cone. — A solid body tapering to a point from a circular 
base. 

Conjunction. — When two or more bodies are in the 
same straight line; with the Sun either in the middle or 
beyond. If the Sun is beyond the body is said to be in 



Astronomy. 118 

inferior conjunction; if in the middle the body is in 
superior conjunction. 

Constellation. — The heavens or celestial sphere is 
divided up into Constellations the same as the Earth is 
divided up into states and countries. Each star in each 
Constellation is named the same as each city or town is 
named on the Earth, and when the name of the star and 
the name of the Constellation is given* the astronomer 
knows where the star is, as Alpha, Ur sa Minor, which 
is the north star. The Greek alphabet is used for these 
names of the stars, as far as they will go and when they 
give out then the Roman alphabet, then numbers are 
used till every star in the Constellations is named. Twc 
stars in different constellations have the same names the 
same as two towns in different states have. 

Corona. — (Lai, Crown). A silver white light seen 
all around the Moon in a total eclipse of the Sun. 

Corrugation. — Seen through the telescope, the Sun 
appears to be made up of globulus masses which resemble 
rice grains. These are called Corrugations. 

Crater.— (Greek, Krater, a mixing bowl). The open- 
ing or hole in a volcano. 

Culmination. — (Culmm, the top). The passage of a 
heavenly body across the meridian. 

Cycle. — (Greek, Kuklos, a circle). 

Cyclone. — (Greek, Kuklos, Circle, or Tupos, a whirl- 
wind). A storm with indescribable fury, lashing the 
surface of the sea into drifting spray, destroying ships, 
houses and everything that lie in its way. In the north- 



120 Elements of 

em hemisphere they rotate in a direction contrary to 
that of the hands of a watch, and progress first in a 
northwesterly then in a northeasterly course. In the 
southern hemisphere this is all reversed. 

Declination. — Celestial latitude, at any place north 
or south of the celestial equator; a place with the mark 
45 degrees north Declination is a line around the heavens 
exactly in the zenith of 45 degrees north latitude on the 
Earth. 

Degree. — The 360th part of a circle, large or small. 
It is sub-divided into 60 minutes of arc and each minute 
is sub-divided into 60 seconds of arc. 

Density. — If we take two bodies the same size but 
one weighs only half as much as the other, it is also but 
half as dense. 

Descending Node. — The point in the orbit of a heav- 
enly body where it goes to the south of the ecliptic. 

Detonating Meteors. — Meteors which are heard to 
explode with great noise as they enter our atmosphere. 

Diameter. — A line passing through the centre of a 
circle and terminating at each end in the circumference. 

Digit. — The 12th part of the diameter of a heavenly 
body. 

Disk. --(Greek, Diskos.) The visible surface of a 
heavenly body. 

Dispersion of Light.— The separation of light into 
the different colors of the spectrum. 

Distance. — The space between two bodies. 



Astronomy. 121 

Double Stars. — Fixed stars with small stars revolving 
around them. 

Earth. — The name of the planet on which we live. 

Eccentricity.— (Lat., Ex Centrum, from a centre.) 

Eclipse. — (Greek, Ekleipsis, a disappearance). One 
heavenly body passing behind another. 

Egress — The passage of one heavenly body off the 
disk of another. 

Ellipse. — A curve every point of which is at such dis- 
tances from two points within called the foci, that the 
sum of these distances in each case are the same. To 
draw an ellipse, drive two nails in a board, any distance 
apart, and then take a string and tie the ends together, 
let the strings be longer when double than the distance 
between the nails, now put the string over the nails, and 
run a pencil around on the board inside of the string, 
you will have an ellipse on the board. The nails are the 
foci. Every heavenly body move in elliptical orbits with 
the primary at one of its foci. 



Elongation. — When Mercury and Venus are at their 
greatest distance east or west of the Sun, which is 29° 
and 47° respectively, they are at their greatest eastern or 
western elongation. 

Emersion. — The reappearance of a body after it has 
been eclipsed. 

Ephemereis. — (Greek, Epi Emera, for a day). A pre- 
paration, so that we can tell the position of a heavenly 
body, for every day or hour, for some time to come. 



122 Elements of 

Equinoxes. — (Lat., Aequus nox, equal night). The 
points where the celestial equator and ecliptic cross. 

Evening Stars. — All planets that can be seen after 
sunset. 

Paculae. — (Lai, Torches). The brightest places on 
the Sun. 

Fixed Stars. — All stars except the planets, the Sun is 
one. 

Focus. — (Lat., Hearth). The point at which all rays 
of light meet. 

Foci. — Plural of Focus. 

Fossils. — (Lat., Fossilis, dug). Any matter in the 
Earth's crust which is formed from vegetable or animal* 
matter is called Fossils. Stratified rocks are, therefore, 
called Fossiliferious. 

Galaxy. — (Greek, Galaktos, of milk). A belt across 
the heavens called the milky way. It is stars so far off 
that one cannot cast a ray of light, but many at a time 
can. It shows the direction in which our universe is 
farthest extended. The universe resembles a circular 
piece of paste board, very thin but wide. If we look, at 
right angles to the milky way we see but few stars, they 
are large ones, and then move the eye along up toward 
the milky way they become thicker and thicker, also, 
smaller and smaller^ because in the milky way we are 
looking at the universe edgeways. 

Galileo. — He was the first to use the telescope, in the 
year 1610. 



Astronomy. 123 

Geocentric. — (Greek, Ge Kentron, Earth's centre). 
From the centre of the Earth. 

Gibbous. — (Lat., Gibbus, bunched). The phases of 
the Moon from quarter to full. 

Gnomon. — (Greek, Gnomon, an index). A sun dial. 

Gravitation. — Pulling together of two heavenly 
bodies; tendency to the centre. 

Gravity. — (Lat. Gravis, heavy). Pulling down. 

Gyroscope. — (Greek, Guros Skopeos, a circle I see). A 
machine made to prove that the Earth rotates upon her 
axis. 

Heliocentric.— (Greek, Elios Kentron, Sun's centre). 
From the centre of the Sun. 

Heliometer. — (Greek, Elios Metron, Sun measure). A 
telescope with a divided object glass, used to measure 
small angles with the greatest of correctness. 

Hemisphere. — (Greek, Emi Sphaira, half a sphere). 

Horizon. — (Greek, Orizos, I bound). The line where 
the sky and surface of the Earth seem to meet. 

Hyperbola. — (Greek, Uperbole). The orbit of a 
Comet that will never return to the Sun. 

Immersion. — (Immergere, to pluage into.) The dis- 
appearance of one heavenly body behind another. 

Inferior Conjunction. — When Mercury, Venus or 
the Moon is between the Earth and Sun. 

Inferior Planets. — Mercury and Venus. Planets 
between the Earth's orbit and the Sun. 



124 Elements of 

Isothermal Lines. — Lines east and west having the 
same, mean annual temperature. 

Jovicentric. — (Lat., Jovis; Greek, Kentron, Jupiter's 
centre). From the centre of Jupiter. 

Latitude. — (Latitudo, breadth). Imaginary lines 
around the Earth east and west which are known by the 
number of degrees they are from the equator. 

Libration* of the Moon. — Sometimes we see the 
region around one pole of the Moon and sometimes 
around the other. This is Libration in latitude. The 
Moon's speed in her orbit is not uniform, enabling us, 
therefore, to see more of one edge, sometimes, than the 
other. This is called Libration in longitude. There 
is still another Libration caused by the observer being 
carried around the Earth from west to east. When he is 
west of the Moon he sees more of the western edge, and 
when he is carried under the Moon and then east of it 
he will see more of the eastern edge. This is called the 
daily libration. 

Light. — Light consist of undulations, or waves in a 
medium called Ether which fills all space. These waves 
are to the eye what sound waves are to the ear. They 
are set in motion by luminous bodies and shine brighter 
and brighter the hotter and hotter the body is. 

Limb. — The edge of the disk of a heavenly body. 

Like. — The shortest distance between two points. 

Longitude. — (Longitudo, length) Imaginary lines 
running north and south, reckoned from either Green- 
wich or Washington. 



Astronomy. 125 

Lunae.— (Lat., The Moon). 

Lunation. — The Moon's period about the Earth. 

Mass. — The quantity of matter a body contains. 

Mean Distance. — Half the sum of the aphelion and 
perihelion distances. 

Meridian.*— (Meridies, midday). Any line directly 
through the zenith and two poles. 

Meteorits. — Bodies which fall upon the Earth. 

Meteors. — Small bodies which revolve about the Sun 
in great clusters. 

Metius, invented the telescope in 1608. 

Micrometer. — (Greek, Mikros Metron, small measure). 
An instrument used to measure small angles. 

Microscope. — (Greek, Mikros Skopeos, small I see). 
An instrument used to see small things. 

Minor Planets. — (Small wanderers). They are the 
Asteroids. 

Month. — There are five kind of months: 
Lunar, 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes and 2f seconds 



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Morning Stars. — All planets that can be seen in the 
morning, or after midnight are called morning stars. 

Nadir. — The point beneath the feet. 



126 Elements op 

Nebula. — (Lat., Nebula, a cloud). Spots seen in 
space. 

Night — The shadow of the Earth. 

Node. — (Lai, Nodus, a knot). The point where the 
orbit of a planet or the Moon crosses the ecliptic. 

Nucleus. — (Lat., Kernal). The densest part of a 
comet. 

Nutation. — (Nutatio, nodding). It is always said 
that the Earth's axis is pointing in the same direction in 
regard to the heavens, but strictly speaking that is not 
the case; the poles of the Earth revolve around the poles 
of the celestial sphere, using the ecliptic as its equator, 
in 25,670 years. So that the north star of to-day will 
not be the north star 12,000 years hence. We saw be- 
fore that the Earth was not an exact sphere but an 
oblate spheroid. We saw too that the eliptic crosses the 
equator at an angle of 23£ degrees. We also saw that 
the Sun moved along the ecliptic and that the Moon keeps 
within five degrees of it, crossing it twice in every luna- 
tion. The cause of the north pole of the Earth revolving 
around the heavens : the Sun and Moon attract the edges 
of the flattened Earth (one edge more than the other 
distant one) and so set the pole around a little as a top 
loaded on one side has a slow "wavering" motion while 
spinning. Were the Earth a perfect sphere this would 
not be the case. In addition to this circular motion of 
the pole of the Earth around the pole of the ecliptic, the 
pole has a wavering motion up and down across this line 
in 19 years, caused by the Moon's nodes performing a 
complete revolution in 19 years. Consequently, for half 



Astronomy. 127 

this time the Moon's orbit is less inclined to the plane of 
the Earth's equator than the ecliptic is; During the 
other half the orbit is inclined so that its divergence 
from the plane of the Earth's equator is the greatest 
possible. In the first place the precessional effect will 
be small while in the latter it will be the greatest pos- 
sible. The circular motion is called the precession of the 
equinoxes. The nodding, up and down and across it is 
called Nutation. 

Occulation. — (Occultare, to hide.) The hiding of one 
body behind another; eclipse. 

Opposition. — A superior planet is in opposition when 
it is exactly on the opposite side of the Earth from the 
Sun. 

Orbit. — (Orbis, a circle.) The path of one heavenly 
body round another. 

Parallax. — (Greek, Parallaxis, alternation). If we 
take two objects, or drive two sticks and then place the 
eye so that it will be in a line with the sticks, now move 
to the right you will see the nearest stick to the left of 
the other, now move to the left you can see the same 
stick to the right. This is called Parallax* 

Now let us make it a little clearer how astronomers 
use it to measure the distance from the Earth to a 
heavenly body. Let us suppose that the Moon is exactly 
on the meridian to you and you can see a star exactly 
beyond it. Now let a man be on the west side of 
the Earth so that the Moon will be on the eastern 
horizon to him, he will see the Moon to the east of the 
star. Now let another man be on the east side of the 



128 Elements of 

Earth so that the Moon will be on the western horizon 
to him, he will see the Moon to the west of the star. 
Now as we know the distance through the Earth we 
have a base line to work on, and astronomers can. by 
this, tell the distance to a heavenly body as well as a sur- 
veyor can tell the distance across water that he cannot 
cross. In fact their measurement is so correct that no 
astronomer will doubt it. After the distance of a body 
is known it is easy to tell its diameter. 

Parabola. — The orbit of a comet, more like a circle 
than a Hyperbola. 
Penumbra. — (Lat. Paene Umbra, almost a shadow). 

Perigee. — (Greek, Peri Ge, near the Earth). The 
point in the Moon's orbit nearest the Earth. 

Perihelion. — (Greek, Peri Elios, near the Sun.) The 
point in the Earth's orbit nearest the Sun. 

Period. — (Greek, Peri Odos, round a path). Time of 
a planet, satellite or a comet around its primary. 

Perturbation. — (Parturbare, to interfere with). 
When one planet is moving toward another it moves 
faster than it would do were it not attracted by it, and 
when it is moving from the other it moves slower. This 
is called Perturbation. 

Phases. — (Greek, Phasis, an appearance). The differ- 
ent appearances of the Moon, also those of Mercury and 
Yenus. 

Photography. — (Greek, Photos Graphe,light painting). 

Photosphere. — (Greek, Photos Sphaira, light sphere). 
The visable surface of the Sun or a fixed star. 



ASTRONOMY. 129 

Plane. — A surface, with which a straight line that 
joins any two of its points will coincide altogether. 

Planet. — (Greek, Planete, wanderer). Opaque bodies 
that revolve about the Sun in different periods. The 
Earth is one. 

Pleiades. — A group of stars. The seven stars. 

Polaris. — The north stars. 

Poles. — (Greek, Poleos, I turn). The ends of the 
imaginary axis on which the Earth or a planet rotates. 

Precession. — (Praecedere, to precede). A slow retro- 
grade motion of the equinoxes upon the ecliptic in 25,- 
670 years. 

Prism. — (Greek, Prisma, refrect light). A lens. 

Prominences. — Something rising from the Sun, seen 
in a solar eclipse, which very much resemble the stream- 
ers in our northern lights. 

Quadrant. — (Quadran, a fourth part). The fourth 
part of a circle. 

Quadrature. — Two bodies are in quadrature when 
they are 90 degrees apart. 

Quarters of the Moon. — When the Moon is halfway 
between new and full. 

Radius. — (Lat., Radius, spoke in a wheel). A line 
from any part of the circumference, to the centre of a 
circle. 

Radius Vector. — A line that joins a planet and the 
Sun in any point of its orbit. 



130 Elements of 

Red Flames. — Something seen on the Sun similar to 
prominences. 

Reflection. — A ray of light is reflected by opaque 
bodies. 

Refraction. — A ray of light is refracted by being bent 
out of its course. 

Retrograde. — A backward motion. 

Revolution. — The period of one body around another. 

Right Ascension. — Celestial longitude reckoned from 
the first point of Aries. 

Rilles. — Cracks in the Moon. 

Rocks. — Any Earthy matter, in geology, is a rock. 
Stratified rocks are those formed since the Earth cooled 
down. Igneous rocks are o£ the original Earth. 

Rotation. — One turn of a body aroiftid its axis. 

Saros. — A term given to the cycle of eclipses by the 
Chaldeans. 

Satellite. — (Satelles, a companion). A small body 
revolving around a large one. 

Schreiberzite. — A mineral found in meteorits. 

Scintillation. — (Scintilla, a spark). Twinkling of a 
star. 

Selenography.— (Greek, Selene Graphos, the Moon 1 
write). A description of the Moon. 

Sidereal — (Sidus, a star). Something concerning 
the stars. 

Sirius. — The brightest fixed star in the heavens. 



Astronomy. 131 

Solid. — It is a magnitude with length, breadth and 
thickness. 

Solstices. — (Lat., Sol Stare, Sun stand still). The 
point in the ecliptic furthest from the equator where the 
Sun appears to stand still for a few days and then turn 
back; the tropics. 

Spectroscope. — (Lat., Spectrum; Greek, Skopeos, Spec- 
trum I see). An instrument to observe the different 
substances in the Sun, star or nebula. 

Spectrum. — The seven differentcolors; as the ones seen 
in a rainbow. 

Sphere. --(Greek, Sphaira). A solid bounded by a 
curved surface every point of which is equally distant 
from a point within called the centre. 

Spheroid. — (Greek, Sphaira Eidos, sphere form). It 
is oblate if it is flatened at the poles, and prolate if length- 
ened out at the poles. 

Star Showers. — Large quantities of meteoric dust fal- 
ing upon the Earth. 

Stars. — Great luminous bodies in the depths of space. 
The Sun is a star. 

Superior Conjunction". — When a planet is beyond the 
Sun. 

Superior Planets. — All planets outside of the Earth's 
orbit. 

Surface. — A magnitude having length and breadth 
without thickness. 



132 Elements of 

Symbols. — (Greek, Sumbolon). Signs used as abrevia- 
tions. 

Syzygies. — (Greek, Sun Zugon, with a yoke). When 
the Sun, Moon and Earth are in the same straight line. 

Tangent.-- -A straight line that touches the circum- 
ference of a circle in one point, without cutting it at 
either end. 

Telescope. — (Greek, Tele Skopeos, afar I see). An 
instrument to see objects at a distance. 

Tides. — (Sexon, Tidan, to happen). 

Trade Winds. — Constant winds blowing toward the 
equator. 

Transit. — (Trans Ire, across to go). 

Transit Instrument. — An instrument to tell the 
time of a transit. 

Tropics. — (Greek, Trepos, I turn). The points in the 
ecliptic where the Sun turns back. 

Ultra Zodiacal Planets. — The minor planets orbit's 
sometimes exceed the limit of the Zodiac, they, therefore, 
received that name. 

Umbra. — (Lat., Umbra, a shadow). 

Universe. — The great cluster of stars in which our 
Sun is situated. 

Vertical. — (Vertex, the top). A perpendicular line. 

Via Lactea. — (Lat., the milky way). 

Volume. — (Volumen, bulk). 



Astronomy. 



133 



Vulcan. — A suspected planet between Mercury and 
the Sun. 

Walled Plains. — Curious markings on the Moon, 

Week. — The week, different to any other period of 
time, has no heavenly body to rule it. The names of 
the days of it are from the Latin, thus: 



Dies Saturni, 
Dies Solis, 
Dies Lunae, 
Dies Martis, 
Dies Mercurii, 
Dies Jovis, 
Dies Veneris, 



Saturday. 

Sunday. 

Monday. 

Tuesday. 

Wednesday. 

Thursday. 

Friday. 



Saturn's day, 

Sun's day, 

Moon's day, 

Mars' day, 

Mercury's day, 

Jupiter's day, 

Venus' day, 

We can readily see where the names of the first three 
come from while the remaining four were from Tiw, 
Woden, Thor, and Frigga; Gods, to Mars, Mercury, 
Jupiter and Venus. 

Weight. — It is simply the amount the Earth draws 
a body. 

Wi:nt>s. — They are currents in the air. 

Year. — There are three kind of years, thus : 
Sidereal, 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9.6 seconds 
Tropical, 365 " 5 " 48 " 46.05 

Anomalistic, 365 " 6 "13 " 49.3 

Zenith. — The point exactly overhead. 



<< 



134: Clouds. 



Physical Features of Clouds, Zones, North- 
ern Lights, Compass Needle, Earth- 
quakes and Volcanoes. 



Clouds. 



Moistuee in the Atmosphere. — The air always con- 
tains more or less aqueous vapor, or vapor of water,- 
which we commonly call moisture. The warmer the air 
the greater is its capacity for aqueous vapor. The water 
in the air is supplied by evaporation from the waters of 
the earth, by the heat of the sun. 

Air that has as much moisture as it can hold is said to 
be saturated. 

Air that has little or no aqueous vapor is said to be 
dry. 

When a cold current of air passes through air that is 
saturated, of course, its temperature is lowered, and this 
lessens its capacity for moisture, and, therefore, part of 
its water must be thrown off, or precipitated as it is 
called. The different forms of precipitation are Dew, 
Fog, Clouds, Rain, Snow, and Hail. 

Dew. — When moist air comes in contact with a solid 
surface which is colder than itself, the aqueous vapor 
settles on the surface as Dew. If we take a tumbler of 
cold ice water into a warm room, we will soon see that 
the outside of the tumbler has become wet. Now we 
know that the water did not ooze through the tumbler. 



Clouds. 135 

Then, we know that it came out of the atmosphere in 
the room. This is dew. So, when a warm day is fol- 
lowed by a cool night, the moisture in the air falls upon 
the grass in the form of dew. If the temperature falls 
below 32°, Fahr., during the night, the dew freezes and 
we have Frost. 

Fog. — Moisture precipitated into globules, so light that 
they float in the air, and yet so heavy that they stay 
near the surface, is called Fog. Fog and cloud is the 
same thing, only differing in the variation of their 
height. 

Cold air resting over warm water will produce fog. 

Along the gulf stream, in the North Atlantic ocean 
during winter, thick fogs are common. Sometimes a 
bank of fog will be seen resting directly over that stream 
and extending for hundreds of miles, while on both sides 
of it there is no fog. 

Thick fogs are common in the Polar regions during 
sunmer, owing to the difference in temperature at differ- 
ent times. 

Clouds. — There are four different kinds of clouds: 
Cirrus, Cumulus, Stratus, and Nimbus. These are sub- 
named, as Cirro-cumulus, Cirro-stratus, and Cumulo- 
stratus. 

The Cirrus. — It presents the appearance of long 
strips, and, therefore, appears like downy feathers. It 
is commonly called cat's-tails, mare's-tails, feather 
clouds, etc. It is composed of minute particles of snow 
in the upper regions of the atmosphere. The Cirrus 
sometimes attains the height of 20,000 feet. It lies, 



136 Clouds. 

generally, above the snow line. Sometimes the sun 
melts the snow and the water falls down into the warm 
atmosphere, and is there absorbed. The direction it falls 
depending on the way the under-currents of air are mov- 
ing. When seen at this time it appears like "mare's- 
tails," as some call it. 

The Cumulus. — This harmless cloud is caused by the 
heat of the sun. It attains its greatest size early in the 
afternoon, and decreases as the sun sinks in the West, 
and disappears about sunset. The Cumulus presents the 
appearance of hemispheres piled one upon another, with 
their square side down. The upper part, as the sun 
pours in his bright rays, looks like great balls of cotton. 
Looking at it near the horizon it presents a fine picture. 
On its square bottom it is dark, while, as you move the 
eye upward, it appears whiter and whiter. It never 
rains from this cloud. It is sometimes called the sum- 
mer day cloud. 

The Stkatus. — It is a wide sheet of cloud covering 
large areas of country, and is, sometimes, so thin that 
we can see the sun or stars through it. It is in the lower 
regions of the atmosphere, and generally forms at sun- 
set and disappears at sun -rise, though in winter it may 
hang over the earth for several days at a time. It is 
caused by a sudden fall in the temperature of the air. 

The Nimbus. — The Nimbus is the rain or snow cloud. 
It appears as a dense black or gray sheet, and in summer, 
at night, it is generally painted in many colors with 
electric phenomenon. 

The Cirro-cumulus, Cirro-stratus, and Cumulo-stratus 
are combinations of the clouds whose names they bear. 



Clouds. 137 

Rain. — When the minute particles of clouds combine 
and become too heavy to float in the air, they fall to the 
earth in the shape of rain. 

Snow and Hail. — Snow is frozen vapor or cloud. 
Hail is frozen rain. Sometimes a portion of a rain cloud 
will, by some cause, shoot above the snow line, and as 
its particles condense they freeze and form pellet snow ; 
these fall through the cloud and become, first wet, and 
then freeze layer on top of layer, and so on till they fall 
below the snow line ; by this time they have become 
hail stones and fall to the earth with great rapidity, 
sometimes doing great damage to crops, etc. Hail- 
stones have been known to fall weighing six and eight 
pounds. During a tremendous hail storm, once on the 
Pampas of South America, haih stones fell so large as to 
kill large animals. 

It makes no difference how large or how small a hail- 
stone is, if we break it open we find, in its centre, a flake 
of pellet snow, and this is enveloped with layers of 
frozen ice. By this we see that the snow gathers the ice 
in its fall to the earth. 

A single hail storm has done damages to grain fields 
and vinyards in the south of France, to the amount of 
$5,000,000. 

Hail storms seldom occur at the level of the sea, with- 
in the tropics, or in high latitudes. It is most common 
in the temperate zone, in summer. 

Snow. — Snow, like everything else, has its uses. It is 
a non-conductor of heat, therefore, as soon as the ground 
is covered with snow, heat will no longer radiate from 
the earth and the ground will not freeze. I have seen 



138 Clouds. 

winters at 46° north latitude where the mean annual 
temperature is but 40°, where the thermometer falls to 
40° below zero at times, with the ground unfrozen, and 
yet the snow would never be over three feet deep. 
While at the same time, remove the snow and the ground 
would freeze to a great depth in a single night. Were it 
not for snow it would be impossible for farmers to pro- 
duce winter grains in this cold latitude. So, snow pro- 
tects the roots of plants in winter from heavy frost. 
One foot of snow is better than three feet of earth to 
keep in the heat. It does not "keep out the cold" as is 
often said, but keeps in the heat that the earth received 
the summer before from the sun, and the heat of the 
molten interior of the earth, which the earth is continu- 
ally radiating, like a hot iron when taken out of the fire. 

Snow Flakes. — They are minute crystals, having a 
nucleus in the centre from which radiate six tiny spikes at 
an angle of 60°. There are many varieties of snow flakes. 

Snow Stokms. — During the fierce and much dreaded 
snow storms of northern latitudes, the snow forms into 
hard pellets, which are driven by the roaring wind in 
blinding masses across the prairie at a great velocity. 
Every trace of the road is soon lost. The exhausted 
traveler, chilled through, sinks to the earth to rise no 
more. These storms are most common in the northern 
part of the United States, on the Alps, and at many 
places in the sub -arctic zone. 

Zones. 

Zones. — The earth is divided up into zones, each of 
which have vegetation peculiar to that part of the globe. 



Zones. 139 

There are fifteen of these zones or belts. As the north- 
ern and southern lines of these zones correspond with 
the Isothermal lines, they are so crooked that it is 
almost an impossibility to explain the zones without a 
large map of the world. 

Equatorial Zone. — This zone encloses, on an average, 
a belt about 35° wide, more of which is north of the 
equator than south of it. Its narrowest place is where 
it crosses the line 120° west longitude (from Greenwich), 
which is about 40° west of South America. It is only 
about 7° wide at this point. Its widest place is a little 
west of the line 80° east longitude. Here the north line 
crooks away up to the Himalaya mountains, while the 
south line dips down toward Mauritius island. It is 
about 40 o wide at this place. This zone encloses the 
eastern Archipelago, the two Indian peninsulas, South 
Arabia, Central Africa, all of South America, north of 
a line running west from Cape St. Rogue, the southern 
"West Indies, and Central America. This is the warmest 
portion of the globe, its mean annual temperature being 
about 79° Fahr. 

Plants of the Equatorial Zone. — Vegetation grow s 
exceedingly heavy in this zone, especially in the region 
of the Amazon river- There is not a foot of ground in 
the silvas of the Amazon, as this region is called, that 
does not support some kind of a plant. The trees grow 
close together, though sometimes have a diameter of 
three and four feet. Stupendous creeping vines stretch 
from tree to tree like cables. Arum plants, such as 
orchids, etc., are common in this zone. The orchids 
attach their long, fleshy roots to rocks, branches of 



140 Zones. 

trees, and everything within their rdach. These plants 
derive all their nourishment from the air. Their flowers 
are particularly interesting on account of their shapes, 
being, in many cases, like insects, birds, bees, flies, 
spiders, doves, etc. 

The Banyan, or Pagoda Fig, is common in many 
places, shooting its long, slender air-roots downward, 
which finally reach the ground and attach themselves to 
it, forming a new trunk, thus, forming a forest of its own 
sufficient to cover a large piece of ground. The Vanilla, 
is a product of the orchids, found here, Gigantic climb- 
ing plants, Plantain, and the Bananna, are common. 

The victoria regia, with its flowers nearly two feet in 
diameter, which adorns the rivers of Guiana, belong to 
this zone, as well as the spice-tree, the terrible upas-tree 
of Java, from whose roots the natives extract a deadly 
poison. The baobab is found in Africa ; though it never 
grows very tall, it has a trunk, sometimes forty or fifty 
feet in circumference. Its branches bend down like the 
willow and form a ball of verdure, sometimes with a 
diameter of 150 feet. 

Nearly 600 species of palms are known in this zone, 
the most useful being the date palm, the oil palm, the 
sago palm, and the cocoa nut tree, which is one of the 
most useful of the palms. 

The North Tropical Zone. — Is a strip averaging 
about 18° in width. Its narrowest place is on the Him- 
alaya mountains, and its widest place is just west of 
Mexico. Its most northern extremity is along the south 
shore of the Mediterranean sea, where it extends as far 
north as 33° north latitude. This zone includes a nar- 



Zones. 141 

row belt of Southern Asia, Northern Africa, Northern 
West India, Southern Florida, and most of Mexico. 

The South Tropical Zone. — Its narrowest places is 
in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, respectively, and its 
widest place is on the east shore of South America. Its 
average width is about 8°. Its most southern extremity 
is in Australia, where it runs down to 27° south latitude. 
This zone includes North Australia, Madagascar, a large 
portion of South Africa, and central South America. 

The vegetation of these zones are about the same as 
that of the equatorial zone. 

The North Sub-Tropical Zone. — The north sub- 
tropical zone includes a very narrow strip of eastern 
South Asia, takes in the peaks of the Himalaya moun- 
tains, here it is only about 2° wide, a narrow strip south 
of the Caspian sea and north of the Persian gulf, the 
Mediterranean sea, Madeira island, and the southern 
part of the United States. Its mean annual temperature 
is about 65°. 

The south sub-tropical zone includes most of southern 
Australia, the southern extremity of Africa, and the 
northern part of southern South America. 

Vegetation of these zones is different from that of the 
equatorial or tropical zones. Owing to the light frost in 
winter, the plants of these zones shed their leaves. 
Among the plants, we may mention the laural, the myr- 
tal, magnolia, fig, the dragon-tree of Canary island, 
and the stately cork oak of Spain, also found in other 
countries. The stupendous dragon tree of Orotava, on 
the Isle of Teneriffe, is seventy-five feet high and fifteen 



142 Zones. 

feet in diameter at its base. It is considered as being 
one of the oldest trees on the globe. 

The North Warm Temperate Zone. — This zone in- 
cludes most of Japan, the country along the Hoang Ho 
and Yang-tse-Kiang rivers, the Kuenlun mountains, the 
southern part of the Caspian sea, the southern part of 
the Black sea, the country along the north shore of the 
Mediterranean sea, southern England and Ireland, 
Azores Islands, and the central portion of the United 
States. 

The South Warm Temperate Zone. — It includes the 
northern part of New Zealand, the extreme southern 
part of Australia, Tasmania, St. Paul and Amsterdam 
Islands, the central part of southern South America. 
The mean annual temperature of these zones is about 
57°. 

Plants of these zones are such as shed their leaves in 
winter. The trees are the oak, chestnut, poplar, pine, 
fig, apple, peach, and hundreds of others. The mam- 
moth tree of California is the most noted tree on the 
globe. These sequoia gigantea, or mammoth trees, are, 
by far, the largest trees on the globe. They attain the 
enormous height of 300 feet, and are thirty feet in 
diameter at their base. Old logs of these stupendous, 
gigantic trees, which have been down for years, must 
have been a third larger than the ones just spoken of. 
Through the hollow trunk of one, as it lies, a man can 
ride erect for seventy-five feet on horseback. Dancing 
parties are held on the stump of another which has been 
cut dowM. 



Zones. 143 

The North Cold-Temperate Zone.— It includes the 
northern part of Japan, a strip through central Asia, 
taking in the Aral Sea, the northern part of the Caspian 
Sea, Central Europe, Southern Sweden, all of Denmark, 
the northern part of England and Ireland, the northern 
part of the United States north of Cape llatteras, Cairo, 
and the mouth of the Columbia River, (Oregon), except 
the northern part of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, 
and Dakota. 

The South Cold-Temperate Zone. — It includes 
Southern New Zealend, Auckland, Kerguelen, and Falk- 
land Islands, and the extreme southern part of South 
America. 

Trees of these Zones are about the same as those of the 
warm temperate zones. Among the useful small plants 
we may mention corn, wheat, oats, rye, barley, potatoes, 
turnips, etc. This north zone is termed "the great wheat 
belt of the northern hemisphere." The mean annual 
temperature of these zones is about 48°. 

North Sub-Arctic Zone. — This zone includes the 
Kurile Islands, a narrow belt through Central Asia, 
Northern Europe, Sweden and Norway, the south-eastern 
part of Iceland, Newfoundland, the southern part of 
British America, Northern Michigan, Wisconsin, Minne- 
sota and Dakota, and the Aleutian Islands. 

The south sub- Arctic zone has no land except a few in- 
significant islands. 

The trees of the north sub-Arctic zone are about the 
same as those of the cold-temperate zone. The plants are 
the same except corn, which is but a dwarf even in the 



144 Zones. 

southern part. The mean annual temperature of this 
zone is about 38°. 

Nobth Arctic Zone. — It includes Kamtchatka, the 
Sea of Okhotsk, a belt of Central Asia, along the Amoor 
River, and Lake Baital, and all the country along the 
Obe River, the northern part of the White Sea, Lapland, 
the northwestern part of Iceland, Southern Greenland, 
Labrador, the southern part of Hudson Bay, Athabasca 
Lake, and the southern part of Alaska. 

The south Arctic zone is all water except a few insig- 
nificant islands. 

The mean annual temperature of these zones is about 
31°. 

Vegetation is dwarfed; the birch being found here and 
there, together with juniper, willows, tamarack, etc., 
which dwindle down to mere shrubs. In some places, 
wheat, oats and barley will grow, while in others lichens 
and moss cover the ground. 

The North Polae Zone. — It takes in all the country 
north of the Arctic zone to the North Pole. The ground 
is froze most of the year in this zone. 

The South Polar Zone includes the Antarctic Conti- 
nent, 

There is but little vegetation to be found in these zones 
especially in the South Polar. Cryptogamia constitutes 
most of the vegetation. There are no trees, a few dwarf 
willows are to be found here and there. The rush, ran- 
unculus, scurvy grass, etc., are to be found in some local- 
ities. 

These fifteen zones are only the Torrid, Temperate and 
Frigid subdivided. They can be better understood this 



Northern Lights. 145 

way than as usually given. The mean annual tempera- 
ture of these zones exactly corresponds with the Isother- 
mal lines of that region and the zones crook the same as 
these lines. (See Isothermal lines). It may be thought 
by the reader that the vegetation of these zones north 
and south are the same. This is not the case ; from the 
fact, that the earth moves round the sun in a year, in an 
eliptical orbit, with the sun at one of its foci, and the 
earth is nearest the sun about January 1st. When the 
earth is nearest the sun she moves faster than when she 
is farthest off. Now, as the southern hemisphere has its 
summer when we have our winter, it will be seen that its 
summer is short and hot, while ours is long and cool, and 
its winter long and cold, while ours is short and warm. 
Further, the southern hemisphere has more water than 
the northern. The sun cannot so readily warm up water 
as it can land. For these two reasons the northern hem- 
isphere has the best climate, and the two corresponding 
zones, notwithstanding their mean annual temperature is 
the same, they do not support the same kind of vegetation* 

Northern Lights. 

Cause of the Northern Lights. — For many years 
there has been much controversy concerning the cause of 
these phenomena. 

Not wishing to use a worthless theory, yet wishing to 
give the cause of the Aurora Borealis, I have made many 
observations; framed theories, discussed them by study 
and observation, discarded them on good grounds, framed 
new ones, discussed, and discarded them, till finally I 
have settled down to the following, which I believe to be 
correct: 



146 Northern Lights. 

We know that they are caused by electricity. But 
when we are asked what electricity is, we cannot tell, all 
we know about its origin is, that it is a force, an agent, 
or a condtion of matter. We know something about its 
nature. (See Northern Lights and Electricity). 

We know that water contains more or less air, yet air 
and water will not mix except to such an extent as is 
necessary. If we force air down into water and then free 
it, it will not stay there, because air is 815 times lighter 
than water. Yet, if we take air down into the water and 
the water there needed it, it would not rise but diffuse 
through the water. 

Now, I believe that electricity is to air, in that respect, 
about what air is to water. 

We know it is ever present in air, yet it occupies room, 
the same as air would do in water. Tnis we infer from 
the fact that the air acts as a medium to produce light as 
the electricity passes through it. If it occupied no space 
in the air, there would be no friction in its passage, and 
we would have no lightning. Also, when we explain 
what thunder is, we are bound to say that the electricity 
cleaves the air with inconceivable rapidity, leaving a 
vacuum behind it, into which the air rushes with a loud, 
crackling sound which we call thunder. Now, if it occu- 
pied no room in the air, the air would not get out of its 
way, and we would have no thunder. We know that the 
air contains more electricity in summer than it does in 
winter, from the fact, that when a heavy cloud is coming 
over the earth in summer it produces electric phenomena. 
But let the same cloud come over the earth in winter we 
would have no such a thing. Now, the two clouds would 



Northern Lights. 147 

produce about the same amount of friction, but, the fact 
is, there is less electricity in the winter cloud than there 
is in the one in the summer. 

By the above facts we find that the air rids herself of 
her electricity in the fall and takes on more in the 
spring, in either hemisphere. 

Cause of the Aurora Borealis. — In high latitudes 
the cold penetrates deeper into the air at all times than it 
does at the equator. In summer the sun warms up the 
surface of the earth which radiates its heat into the lower 
strata of air and cause them to become warm; as they 
become warm they take on more water; and, as they take 
on moisture they take on electricity with it, till the lower 
strata of the air are saturated with both water and elec- 
tricity. Thus, the snow line is raised to a considerable 
height above the surface. 

In winter, at 46° north latitude, in the United States, 
the snow line is on the surface of the earth. 

Now, let us suppose that the temperature in the upper 
region of the atmosphere has taken a sudden fall, what 
will the air do with its electricity? It is bound to get rid 
of it, because it no longer needs it; the lower strata of air 
do not need it, and the air south of the locality has all it 
needs. We are bound to admit that it must throw the 
electricity off. But where does it send it to? My answer 
is, that the air gradually relaxes its grip on the electricity 
as it becomes cold and the electricity moves out through 
the upper regions of the air with wonderful rapidity in 
the shape of streamers of Northern Lights, because the 
electricity is so much lighter than air. 

We know, if it is lighter than air, that it cannot stay 



148 Northern Lights. 

in the air unless it is needed, any more than air can stay 
in water. How do we know that electricity is lighter 
than air? Let us see : a wave in water will move very 
slow, only a few inches in a second, while a wave of sound 
in the air, which is about the same thing, will move 
many yards. A movement of electricity would go round 
the world in a moment of time. How do we know but 
that the medium which we call Ether, which conveys the 
light of the sun and stars to us, is nothing but electricity 
in its natural state in space. If so, we know that a wave 
of light will travel 185,000 miles in a second through it. 

Observations as Taken from Time to Time.— From 
the 15th of August to the 1st of December we have the 
greatest number of electric storms. Why? Because the 
snow line is gradually falling toward the surface of the 
earth, and if it takes a sudden fall we have an electric 
storm. 

From the 1st of December to the 1st of March we 
seldom see the aurora borealis in the extreme northern 
part of the United States. Why ? Because the snow 
line is below the surface of the earth, and there is but 
little electricity in the air. 

From the 1st of March to the 1st of June we have an 
occasional auroral phenomena. Why? Because the 
snow line is gradually rising from the surface of the 
earth, and if it takes a sudden fall back, we have an 
electric storm. 

From the 1st of June to the 15th of August we have 
but few electric storms. Why ? Because the snow line 
is at its highest point and does not rise or fall so sud- 
denly. 



The Compass Needle. 149 

If we have a long, dry spell in the fall of the year, we 
generally have an electric storm when the rain sets in. 
"Why ? Because, when the rain sets in the temperature 
in the air is suddenly lowered and the snow line drops 
nearer the surface and lessens the capacity in the air for 
electricity. 

When a great electric storm is prevailing, it is almost 
impossible to send a message by telegraph. Why ? Be- 
cause both air and the earth are saturated with electri- 
city. 

Electric storms are usually followed by snow or frost. 
Why ? Because the temperature in the air has suddenly 
dropped. Just before the stupendous electric storm 
which occurred on the 17th of November, 1882, the 
weather had been warm, dry and beautiful ; all of a sud- 
den we noticed the electric phenomenon, and in three 
days after, the thermometer ran down nearly to zero. 
Putting all these facts together, we can safely say that 
the northern lights are caused by a sudden fall in the 
temperature of the upper regions of the atmosphere, 
which lessens the capacity in the air for eletricity, and 
by the pressure of the atmosphere the electricity is forced 
out through it. 

If this be so, we must come back to gravitation as the 
sole cause of these phenomena, the same as we are in 
everything else. 

The Compass Needle. 

Experiments with the Compass Needle. — The cause 
of the compass needle pointing toward the poles of the 
earth is due to electric currents. 

Experiment shows that these currents are running east 



150 The Compass Needle. 

and west. It would seem as though the .needle would 
point in the direction the currents of electricity are run- 
ning, but then, if we place the needle between two cur- 
rents it would point toward both, or at right angles to 
the currents. 

Now, the sun warms up the earth and air from east to 
west, this would naturally cause electric currents to move 
in that direction, and to these currents this phenomena 
is due. 

Experiment shows that at 40° or 50° north latitude, 
the greatest amount of magnetism is in the south end of 
the needle, while at the equator the attractions of both 
ends of the needle are the same, then, we may safely guess 
that in the southern hemisphere the north end of the 
needle has the greatest magnetism. This is not strange 
when we come to consider that the greatest amount of 
electricity in the air is at the equator, and that there is 
little or none, in it, at the poles owing to the extreme 
cold there. In this way we can plainly see that the elec- 
tricity at the equator will attract the end of the needle 
nearest it, hardest and cause the magnet on the needle 
to assume that end of the needle. 

But there is another difficulty when we come to discuss 
the compass needle, thus : The north end of the needle 
always points north, no difference in what direction it is 
when we level the compass. Now, it would seem as 
though one end would point in one direction as well as 
the other, if it was caused by electric currents running 
east and west, composed exactly of the same kind of 
electricity. To get rid of this difficulty we are bound to 
believe that there are two kinds of magnet on the needle, 



Volcanoes and Earthquakes. 151 

and that there are, also, two kinds of magnet on the 
earth — one north and the other south — and that the 
south magnet assumes the south end of the needle, and 
the north magnet the north end. 

There is one thing sure about it. If we touch either 
end of the needle with a piece of steel, it will "addle" 
the needle. I have seen the needle addled in this way till 
it would wheel round and round many times. This 
shows that the steel mixes up or addles the magnet on 
the needle. To say, therefore, that we know exactly 
what causes the needle to point north and south, would 
be saying too much with the little proofs we have. We 
may think in one direction while experiment and discus- 
sion will lead us in another. We cannot, therefore, let 
the least thing go by ud noticed. 

Prof. Churchill says: "The currents, which generate 
the magnetism of the needle, circulate from east to west, 
around the earth, being mainly caused by the sun's rays 
heating the earth and air in that direction." 

Volcanoes and Earthquakes. 

The interior of the Earth consists of a firey, moulten 
mass. This is confirmed by observations of the temper- 
ature beneath the surface. The heat is fouud to increase 
at the rate of 1 Q for about every 55 feet. 

If this rate is kept up to the depth of 28 miles, the 
heat would be about 2,700 °Fahrenheit's thermometer, or 
the temperature, at which everything we know would be 
in a state of fusion. 

To the action of this heated interior is due, volcanoes 
and earthquakes 

Experiment in deep salt works, in Prussia, and in deep 



152 Volcanoes and Earthquakes. 

artesian wells in France, and elsewhere shows that the 
temperature, as we go down, is about uniform in all parts 
of the earth. 

Volcanoes. — They are mountains in the shape of a 
cone, which send forth, through their craters, fire, smoke 
and ashes. Sometimes brilliant flames of fire-like ap- 
pearance issue from the crater, which is due, in some 
eases, to the reflection of the glowing lava on the clouds 
of vapor sent forth. During the eruption of Kilanea in 
1840, the heavens were so brilliantly illuminated that 
print could be read at night, at a distance of 40 miles. 

The friction of particles of steam against the strong 
substances with which they are mingled are sufficient to 
produce electric light at times. Sometimes streams of 
melted rock gush forth through the crater of a volcano. 
This is called an eruption. 

An eruption is generally foretold by rumbling sounds, 
slight tremblings of the earth; steam and gas sent forth 
in great quantities through the crater, and reports sound- 
ing like distant cannon. In a short time lava rises in 
the crater, either overflowing its walls, or burst 
through the side of the mountain in great rivers, rush- 
ing down the mountain side with great rapidity and 
sweeping everything before it, finally it finds a resting 
place in the neighboring valley. Sometimes huge rocks 
are hurled forth, as if shot from a cannon, and sent fly- 
ing hundreds of feet in the air. Large quantities of 
ashes and vapor are thrown off, which shut out the heav- 
ens from view, and mingle in the clouds, sometimes fall- 
ing in great torrents of mud, destroying everything on 
which it falls, of the vegetable kind. 



Volcanoes and Earthquakes 153 

Mt. Souffriere, (soo-fre-air), on the Island of Guade- 
loupe, in the West Indies, during the eruption of 1812, 
threw out ashes which completely destroyed the vegeta- 
tion of the Island. In the eruption of other volcanoes, 
in Java and elsewhere, torrents of mud and rain which 
fell, destroyed hundreds of people. 

There are two kinds of volcanoes, Extinct and Active. 

An Extinct Volcano. — It is one that is not now ac- 
tive, but has been, in ages and ages gone by. There are 
more extinct volcanoes than there are active, which lead 
us to believe that volcanic activity was much more in- 
tense at one time than at present. 

An Active Volcano. — It is one that is now in a state 
of eruption, or has eruptions at intervals of rest. 

There are about 125 active volcanoes on the globe. 
Of this number, only about forty belong to the Atlantic, 
and Indian oceans, or Islands in, or land bordering to 
them. The rest, except those in Iceland, which is in 
the Arctic Ocean, belong to the Pacific Ocean. 

Earthquakes. — These are vibrations of the earth's 
crust. Earthquakes are the most terrible phenomena 
in nature. They are said to have destroyed 13,000,000 
of human beings since the creation of man. 

During the tremendous earthquake of Lisbon, which 
occurred on the 1st day of November, 1775, in the space 
of six minutes, 60,000 people were killed. 

It is believed that 7,000,000 square miles of the earth's 
surface was moved by this tremendous catastrophe. 

Earthquakes are usually preceeded by unmistakable 
signs. The electrical condition of the atmosphere seem 



154 VOLCAKOES AND EARTHQUAKES. 

to have been changed. Man experience dizziness and op- 
pression, while beast utter cries of distress, running 
hither and thither as if uneasy. The air is still and 
hazy and the sun looks like a great ball of fire, though 
sometimes these signs are wanting, and a shock is felt at 
once without the slightest warning. 

Earthquakes differ widely in violence. Sometimes a 
mere tremor of the ground is felt, while at others a shock 
is felt which lifts up the earth's crust, breaking it into 
fragments, forming fissures or cracks more than a mile 
in length, which open out and close up in succession, 
and sometimes, as in the case of an earthquake which 
occurred in Calabria, southern Italy, fields sown with 
different kinds of grain are found to have actually 
changed places. 

The year 1868 was a remarkable year for earthquakes. 
One occurred in the Sandwich Islands, destroying several 
villages and many lives. Another at Arica, South 
America, destroying the city and about 200 of its inhab- 
itants. This shock was felt throughout the Andes 
mountains, from the United States of Columbia to Chili, 
throwing down many cities and towns, and destroying 
50,000 people. As soon as the shock was felt at Arica, 
the water in the Pacific left the shore as if sent back by 
a mighty force. Presently a huge wave 40 feet high 
came rolling in with great rapidity, which was followed 
by others, destroying all the vessels in the harbor, ex- 
cept the United States steamer "Wateree," which was 
driven from her mooring and hurled ashore, finally lodg- 
ing on an elevation north of the city. 

These huge waves extended clear across the Pacific. At 



Volcanoes and Earthquakes. 155 

the Sandwich Islands, on the 14th of August, the day 
after the shock at Arica, the sea came rolling in in 
great, broad waves, which returned several times in suc- 
cession, and ran up six feet higher than the usual tide. 
In Japan the same thing was witnessed on the 15th of 
August. On the 17th of August, same year, several 
shocks were felt in Australia, New Zealand, and Tas- 
mania. 

Owing to the thinness of the earth's crust, in ages and 
ages gone by, it is thought that earthquakes were much 
more common then than at present. In fact, as the 
earth becomes cooler and cooler in the interior, her crust 
grows thicker and thicker, and more and more solid, so 
that the time may come, in ages and ages to come, when 
there will be none of these phenomena. 

Earthquakes of Modern Times.— On Friday, March 
the 4th, at 30 minutes past one o'clock, 1881, a shock was 
felt at Cassamicciola, Italy, destroying part of the town. 
Soon after the first shock came a second one, which lasted 
seven seconds and was accompanied by a noise like sub- 
terranean thunder, destroying the town and killing 200 
people. 

At 30 minutes past 9 o'clock, July the 28th, 1883, a 
tremendous shock was felt at Cassamicciola, Lacco, Forio, 
Sociara, and several other towns on the island of Ischia, 
Italy, destroying the towns and killing hundreds of 
people. 

On the Saturday following a tremendous shock was felt 
at the town of Ischia, same Island, which destroyed the 
town. It is believed that 8,000 people lost their lives in 
these earthquakes. 

On August the 28th, 1883, a tremendous earthquake 



156 Volcanoes and Earthquakes. 

took place on the Isle of Java, which lasted for several 
days. 

For some time prior, slight tremors were felt, which 
were followed by more violent shocks. Soon all the 
volcanoes on the Island were in a state of extreme activ- 
ity, sending forth fire, mud, stone and lava in large 
quantities. The stones and mud where thrown hun- 
dreds of feet into the air as if shot from an enormous 
cannon. These rained down in the neighboring valleys 
crushing in the roofs of houses, breaking down bridges 
and crushing all organic matter that happened to be in 
their way, as well as destruction to crops and other prop- 
erty. 

The commotion in the Earth's crust set the sea in mo- 
tion which receded, and then huge waves came rolling 
in inundating cities, towns and valleys, destroying thou- 
sands of human lives. In many cases whole towns and 
cities were destroyed without leaving a single person to 
tell their fate. It is believed that 76,000 people lost their 
lives in this tremendous catastrophe. 



INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Active Volcanoes 153 

Affects of Snow 137 

Alphabetical Etymological Vocabulary of Astronomical Terms. 115 

Annular Eclipse of the Sun 43 

Appearance of a Total Eclipse of the Sun 43 

Asteroids or Main Planets 81 

Beauties of Nature 33 

Cause of Northern Lights 145 

Cause of a Comet 20 

Chemical Elements 74 

Clouds 135 

Colored Stars - 94 

Comets 88 

Dew 1 34 

Discussion of the Sun 29 

Double Stars 94 

Earth Shine 45 

Earthquakes 153 

Earthquakes of Modern Times 155 

Eclipses 40 

Eclipses of the Moon 40 

Elements of the Moons Ill 

Elements of the large Planets 112 

Elements of the Sun 61 

Equator and Ecliptic 52 



158 Index. 

PAGE. 

Equatorial Zone 139 

Experiments with the Compass Needle 149 

Extinct Volcanoes 153 

Falling Bodies 10 

First Law on Falling Bodies 12 

Fog 135 

Force 5 

Greek Alphabet 98 

History of the Planets 57 

Isothermal Lines 99 

Jupiter . . , 81 

Mars rl 80 

Meteors 95 

Meteorits 95 

Moons or Satellites . . . ; 59 

Mountain Chains, cause of 22 

Motion of the Stars 93 

Moisture in the Atmosphere 134 

Multiple Stars 94 

Names of some of the stars 109 

Nebulae, cause of 15 

Nebulae 90 

Neptune 86 

New Stars 95 

North Sub- Artie Zone 143 

Northern Lights and Electricity 25 

Number of Eclipses 44 

Partial Eclipse of the Moon 42 

Plants of the Equatorial Zone , 139 



Index. 159 

PAGE. 

Rain 137 

Revolution of the Earth and Moon about the Sun 48 

Saturn 84 

Second Law on Falling Bodies 13 

Science and Religion 87 

Signs of the Zodiac 54 

Snow and Hail 137 

Snow Flakes 138 

Snow Storms 138 

Space 36 

The Atmosphere 73 

The Cirrus 135 

The Constellations 96 

The Earth 66 

The Earth's Structure 76 

The Ecliptic 46 

The Cumulus 136 

The Moon r 37 

The Nimbus .136 

The North Tropical Zone 144 

The North Sub-Tropical Zone 141 

The North Warm Temperate Zone 142 

The North Cold Temperate Zone .143 

The North Arctic Zone 144 

The North Polar Zone 144 

The Planets— Mercury 63 

Thd Solar System 55 

The South Tropical Zone 141 

The South Warm Tropical Zone 142 



160 Index. 

PAGE. 

The South Cold Tropical Zone 143 

The South Warm Temperate 142 

The Stars 92 

The Stratus 136 

The Sun 59 

The Telescope 105 

The Zodiac 54 

The Zodiac Light 35 

Tides 102 

Tides on the Air 105 

Third Law on Falling Bodies 14 

Total Eclipses of the Moon 41 

Total Eclipses of the Sun 42 

Urenus 85 

Variable Stars 94 

Venus 65 

Volcanoes and Earthquakes 151 

Volcanoes 152 

Waters of the Globe 75 

What We Are 92 

Zones 138 



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